Mattie Miracle Walk 2023 was a $131,249 success!

Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation Promotional Video

Thank you for keeping Mattie's memory alive!

Dear Mattie Blog Readers,

It means a great deal to us that you take the time to write to us and to share your thoughts, feelings, and reflections on Mattie's battle and death. Your messages are very meaningful to us and help support us through very challenging times. To you we are forever grateful. As my readers know, I promised to write the blog for a year after Mattie's death, which would mean that I could technically stop writing on September 9, 2010. However, at the moment, I feel like our journey with grief still needs to be processed and fortunately I have a willing support network still committed to reading. Therefore, the blog continues on. If I should find the need to stop writing, I assure you I will give you advanced notice. In the mean time, thank you for reading, thank you for having the courage to share this journey with us, and most importantly thank you for keeping Mattie's memory alive.


As Mattie would say, Ooga Booga (meaning, I LOVE YOU)! Vicki and Peter



The Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation celebrates its 7th anniversary!

The Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation was created in the honor of Mattie.

We are a 501(c)(3) Public Charity. We are dedicated to increasing childhood cancer awareness, education, advocacy, research and psychosocial support services to children, their families and medical personnel. Children and their families will be supported throughout the cancer treatment journey, to ensure access to quality psychosocial and mental health care, and to enable children to cope with cancer so they can lead happy and productive lives. Please visit the website at: www.mattiemiracle.com and take some time to explore the site.

We have only gotten this far because of people like yourself, who have supported us through thick and thin. So thank you for your continued support and caring, and remember:

.... Let's Make the Miracle Happen and Stomp Out Childhood Cancer!

A Remembrance Video of Mattie

November 19, 2015

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Thursday, November 19, 2015


Tonight's picture was taken on November 24, 2008. Days before Thanksgiving. Mattie was home recovering from his limb salvaging surgeries. Though you would think we would all be happy to be home and out of the hospital, WE WEREN'T! Being home was challenging for us because it meant managing Mattie's pain, his medications, flushing his broviac catheter lines and trying to help Mattie cope with his impossible situation. In the hospital there were a lot of distractions, outlets, and people who attempted to pull him out of his depression. But at home, we had NO support. Needless to say, I will always remember this horrifically painful Thanksgiving, a Thanksgiving in which we had trouble making Mattie happy and pulling him out of his deep funk. I can feel that funk as if it were yesterday. 


Quote of the day: A best friend is the only one that walks into your life when the world has walked out.  Shannon L. Alder


As hospital experiences go, I would say that yesterday was a positive one. Thankfully I had the where with all to ask Linda (Mattie's child life specialist) and Debbi (Mattie's sedation nurse) to meet us at hospital admissions and stay with us through the process. I am not sure what is worse, being the patient or being the family caregiver waiting and not knowing what is going on. For the most part, Peter was able to follow me around expect during my needle localization and surgery. For those he had to remain in the waiting area. I am happy that Debbi encouraged me to advocate for Valium. I am much more forceful when advocating for someone else, than I am for myself. But Debbi could see that my request wasn't unreasonable and encouraged me to say.... NO, despite what your procedures are I need Valium. 

Before they could remove the mass, I first had to undergo another sonogram and mammogram. This imagining was necessary in order to place a WIRE, yes a WIRE through my skin into the mass. The wire serves as a guide for the surgeon to know where the mass is, because remember my mass can't be felt! However, the insertion of the wire is done while you are conscious! I think the notion of that, the potential of pain, and just being in a hospital in general made me anxious. As I told the nurse..... yes the average person can probably go through this wire procedure without anxiety meds, but I am NOT your average patient, I lost a child to cancer and I have the medical trauma to prove it. She couldn't deny my request, so out came the Valium. 

The placement of the wire was interesting. I had two radiologists and a tech with me. These had to be my FAVORITE people of the day. I loved the radiologists... they listened, answered questions, and kept me posted every step of the way. But Janelle, the tech, I fell in love with. She couldn't do enough to make a painful experience more bearable. In fact, when I went in today for my follow up appointment, Janelle saw me from across the room and waved at me! My surgeon even told me that the radiologists wanted to know how the surgery went, since they took a liking to me, and she says this rarely happens! That was touching to hear. 

Not everyone understands what Peter and I have lived through, only certain people we come across in the health care industry get it! Case in point, in my follow up visit today, I first met with the surgeon's nurse practitioner. I am less than wild about her and her patronizing tone. I feel that in my situation screening sonograms are necessary. Though she heard me, she said that insurance doesn't cover screening sonograms, only screening mammograms. So unless I present with pain, no one will write me a script for a screening sonogram in the future. I neither liked her tone or the understanding of the problem! She said that my mass wasn't cancer, just precancerous, and therefore that doesn't merit my sonogram screenings for the future. She then gave me a lecture about over testing, that if you test for something you are going to find something. All I could say is REALLY!? I believe in being proactive and not waiting around for a problem to arise, especially when I diagnosed my own issue now. So this woman and I were NOT on the same plane nor does she have any empathy for what I have lived through. 

After the wire placement, I then was wheeled to a pre-op area and it was there I met the anesthesia team. They were fantastic, the attending physician was all business and his resident was personable. But I felt like I was in capable hands. The funny part about this is they wheeled me into the OR and had me move myself from the gurney to the OR table. One nurse asked me if I felt woozy. I said NO, I am very awake and alert, and the sedative isn't working! Which is hysterical, because after I said that I literally passed out and the next thing I knew I was in the post-op area. DAZED!!! I learned right away from my c-section with Mattie, how crucial anesthesiologists are, they can make it or break it for you. 

Though I was undergoing the surgery I was worried about Peter. I know how difficult it is when something is wrong with either of us. We just feel more vulnerable after Mattie's diagnosis and death. We really just have one another, and if something happens to one of us, it is problematic. Which is why I told Linda about my surgery. I knew Linda had the where with all to be able to support me and Peter at the same time. I saw her in action when she helped me with Mattie. But what I love about Linda is she assesses what you want and she then works her magic to accomplish it. She doesn't come in with her own agenda, or a set script of what you should be doing! This kind of temperament  works wonders for me. Because when I am stressed out and anxious, not unlike Mattie, I don't want to hear talking. As I say always, if I get sick, I want Linda by my side. That was one of the reasons I chose Georgetown for my surgery. Linda just gets us, she knows what we have been through because she lived it right along side us, every step of the way. She knows how I think, what bothers me, what I like, and so forth. She learned these things while we were both helping Mattie, so in essence she is the perfect caregiver and advocate for us. 


When I got back home last night, I received this adorable care package in the mail from our friend Lori. I have never heard of Grandma's Chicken Soup company, but I have to say I LOVE IT! The soup is very fresh, no preservatives in it or salt. But lovely big pieces of chicken, carrots, and noodles! It reminds me of homemade chicken soup my own grandma would make for me when sick! 











The soup comes with this lovely soup mug, a spoon, oyster crackers, an adorable carrot pen, and a chicken shaped cookie!!! 

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