Monday, October 21, 2019

Monday, October 21, 2019

Tonight's picture was taken on October 6, 2007. We took Mattie to Butler's Orchard, to go on a hayride. The hayride took us to the pumpkin patch, where Mattie could pick his own pumpkins off the vine. As you can see from the wagon ride back, Mattie was very successful pumpkin picking. 


Quote of the day: No legacy is so rich as honesty. ~ William Shakespeare


A few months ago, we were contacted by a member of the childhood cancer advocacy community. She had connected with a film producer in New York and has been raising money (NOT FROM THE CANCER COMMUNITY) in order to create a 7 part docuseries on childhood cancer. The target audience for this video series is people unaffected by childhood cancer. 

Given my experiences working with other childhood cancer organizations, I felt I had to do my due diligence with this request and truly get to understand the motives and intentions of those creating the film. Mainly because I have seen films created by other groups which I have found counter productive and also exploitative in nature.

Today we had the opportunity to meet the film producer, Kristi Gatto, and her team.... Brandon and Maria. 

From left to right: Brandon, Kristi, and Maria


About Kristi's company:
http://riskitproductions.com/thepromise

The Video Series is entitled, the Promise:
https://www.thepromisedoc.com/

The crew loved our home and felt that doing the photo shoot in front of the picture window would be perfect. I call this window.... "my window with a view."

Maria caught us smiling. But given the content we were talking about, there wasn't much smiling. We did this interview NOT knowing the questions ahead of time. Which can be nerve racking. Of course prior to meeting Kristi, I sent her photos of Mattie pre-cancer and with cancer. In addition, she asked for video clips of him while on treatment. So there was homework ahead of time, which I think was helpful to Kristi and her crew. 

The nature of our portion of the video series was to discuss the psychosocial issues that arise from a cancer diagnosis. Kristi particularly wanted my insight on this as she knew I am a licensed mental health counselor. I explained how Mattie's mental health issues were discovered by me and how I went about getting the help Mattie needed for his depression, anxiety and medical traumatic stress. Of course we linked all of this to Mattie Miracle and our vision for the Psychosocial Standards of Care (which is the publication Peter was holding in his hands).

Kristi asked us about 10 questions. I have to admit that some of the questions were challenging.... such as: 1) What do you want people unaffected by childhood cancer to know about the disease and our journey, and 2) What would I like to personally say to the friends in my life who walked away from us?

The second question required a lot of mental censorship on my part. Because the immediate response wouldn't have been nice or kind to hear. But overall, I spoke to the fact that walking away from a long term friendship because of childhood cancer, leaves a mom with two losses (the loss of having a child diagnosed with cancer and the loss of a friendship and feeling abandoned). In addition, I explained that our support community is vital to our existence because they help us keep Mattie's memory and legacy alive. I tried to put a positive spin on the fact that I lost friends I had for over 15 years. Which in reality is HARD to understand and justify. 

The crew was wonderful and very patient. As we live right near Route 66. So you can hear ambulances, traffic, and helicopters constantly. Each time one of these vehicles came by, we had to stop taping! Which was challenging for me, because sometimes I was in mid-sentence and would have to stop talking. 

Meanwhile the hit of the day was Sunny. He made friends with the entire crew.


Pictured here from left to right: Maria, Brandon, Vicki, Peter, and Kristi