Sophia Tempee was born with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis ravaging her organs. She was 6 lbs 8 ounces, bouncing, beautiful, pink with no hair and HUGE dark eyes and no one had a clue, but she was sick. From birth, she puked nearly everything up all the time. I doubled up the formula in her bottles… Continue reading Don’t Say “She Looks Fine” to the Parent of a Sick Child.
Dear Pediatricians, First, let me start by thanking you. You have gone into an impossible field that forces you to see children in pain or dying, and yet you come to work every day and provide care and work towards solutions for children. You have to help demanding, angry, and scared parents, even when you… Continue reading Open Letter to Pediatric Physicians
We got a bill in the mail today… which really isn’t that weird, except this one comes in periodically from a physician who will NOT be getting paid for the supposed service for which he is charging us. The bill is for a physician’s visit over 7 years ago. You read that right. SEVEN years. … Continue reading Listen to Your Gut
What if someone you loved had cancer? Would you think the word “remission” would be the end of the terror? That your fears would be gone, right? That it’s okay now, and that your baby or your husband or wife or mom or dad or sibling is going to be fine now, and that you… Continue reading What Remission Looks Like
When cancer lands in your life, it hits like an nuclear explosion. It incinerates what used to be there. It shatters the atmosphere. It sucks the air to it first, so fast that the trees bend towards the explosion. Then it shatters the world with the force of the shock wave blasting outwards, mowing down… Continue reading The Silent Echo of Cancer
After nearly losing a child, I find that my approach to raising her and her siblings has completely changed. I learned so much about how to parent from her. This is what I’ve learned: Protect your children at ALL costs. I shouldn’t have to explain this one. You were given your child as a gift.… Continue reading What Nearly Losing My Child Taught Me About Parenting.
This $hi+ is real, people. It’s real. And this one was a hard one to write. Not because I didn’t want to put it out there, cause I’m not ashamed. It happened to me. It wasn’t something that I chose. It was hard to write because I had a hard couple of days with this… Continue reading PTSD for Parents of Children with Chronic Illnesses.
I’ve spent the last 24 hours trying to figure out how to articulate this one issue in a way that is understandable, so please be patient with me. I had a conversation with a fellow chemo mom/histio mom yesterday that drew me back a few years and I wanted to put it out there. This… Continue reading Childhood Cancer bruising your profession and finances.
I got to spend today with Sophie at work because her school had this weird Fall holiday thing on a Wednesday with little to no warning. She was AWESOME. She drew this incredible T-shirt on a little girl in a coloring book and one of my co-workers took one look at it and told her… Continue reading Childhood Cancer’s Path of Destruction and it’s Aftermath.
Okay, so this going to be a heavy one. Sorry in advance. September is both Childhood Cancer Awareness Month AND Histiocytosis Awareness Month. Most likely, you have never heard of Histiocytosis, and that’s cause it’s a REALLY rare cancer that mostly hits small children, usually infants and toddlers, and can show up with symptoms that… Continue reading Childhood Cancer/Histiocyctosis and the tattoo covered scar it left behind.
Herding Chaos 