Top Ten Ways To Know...

... you're the parent of a child with cancer:

1. Your kids refer to Ronald McDonald House as "Mama's House".
2. Your kid has been vomiting for three days and when you take him to his pediatrician, the doctor asks you what to do.
3. You get a fundraising letter in the mail from St. Jude and you personally know all the kids in the photo with Marlo.
4. On your kid's birthday, you look forward to the day they will have hair (your child is turning 10).
5. Your kid asks you how old you were when you got a brain tumor, and how old they will be when they get one.
6. You get scented hand sanitizer and antibacterial soap for your birthday.
7. You run into some close friends after not seeing them for a few months and you can't recognize them with hair, eyelashes and eyebrows.
8. You look in your purse for a lipstick and instead find seven tubes of emla (lidocaine ointment, used to numb the skin before a blood draw).
9. You know the entire staff at St. Jude in Memphis, 2000 miles away from your home, by name but you can't remember the name of your pediatrician's nurse.
10. You are halfway through eating dinner when you notice that the sharps container is in the middle of the dinner table.

We've got some friends from St. Jude that are going through some awful times right now, some of their kids may not make it to Christmas and I'm thinking of them constantly.

They could use your prayers this holiday season:

• Ben Bowen, brain tumor, 2 years old, home on hospice.
• Bret Brady, brain tumor, 3 years old, home on hospice.
• Aaron Hunter, neuroblastoma, 6 years old, home on hospice.
• Helen Garner, brain tumor, turns 1 year old on 12-17, left St. Jude yesterday because her treatments aren't working to go home on hospice.

A little boy we met at Ronald McDonald House who had radiation the same time as Steven and who has the same sort of tumor and the same doctor:

• Baby Jay, second relapse of brain tumor, 3 years old.

And a friend from the pediatric brain tumor list I subscribe to who just lost her 4-year old daughter on Monday:

• Kheli Jo, brain tumor, forever four years old.

Appreciate each precious day with your kids, give them a hug, tell them you love them, we do!

- Kathleen