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

January 8, 2020

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Tonight's picture was taken on January 12, 2009. Mattie was in NYC at Memorial Sloan Kettering. He needed to go to New York in order to qualify for an experimental treatment option. It was started in NY and then the drug was administered weekly at his hospital in Washington, DC. Needless to say, with the first dosage, Mattie got sick, and had a raging fever, was shaking like a leaf (which is referred to has rigors), and needed demerol (February 13, 2009's blog discusses the reactions to MTP, the experimental drug to a T). However, unlike at Georgetown, Sloan Kettering sent us back to the hotel after Mattie received his first dosage. They did not even keep him for observation. Needless to say, his reaction was severe enough that we had to come back to the hospital. In fact, at Georgetown, it was in Mattie's medical chart that he could not be released after receiving the weekly experimental drug. He needed to stay for several hours there after for observation, because trying to manage the side effects at home would be impossible. 


Quote of the day: Life isn't about your age. Life is about living. So when your birthday comes be thankful for the year that has just past and anticipate with a happy heart what the coming year will bring. ~ Catherine Pulsifer


I am not sure if I celebrated birthdays the same way before Mattie died! But now they mean more to me, especially since I realize no birthday is guaranteed. Today I got together with friends to celebrate Jane's birthday. Three of these women I met during Mattie's preschool days (Catherine, Jane, and Ann). The fourth lady in the photo is Peggy. Peggy is now a Mattie Miracle board member and is our largest fundraiser for the Foundation several years in a row. 


The restaurant we went to today likes to celebrate birthdays. So much so that when they bring you your dessert, they put on the music..... 16 candles (by the Crests). Naturally if you want to celebrate your birthday quietly, it isn't going to happen at this restaurant. I was introduced to this restaurant in Old Town, Alexandria by my friend, Margaret. Margaret was Mattie's preschool teacher and unfortunately is no longer with us as she died from ALS in 2014. Nonetheless, whenever I go to Le Refuge, I think of my friend Margaret. Ironically, I met Catherine and Jane in Margaret's classroom, as all our children were in Margaret's class. 

In any case, today's lunch topics were heavy, as they ranged from illness to death. Needless to say I listened and absorbed all the topics and probably to no surprise, left feeling not upbeat but depressed. As I know illness and death quite up close and personal, and to me it is even worse when its the death of your own child. 

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