Taking People For Granted

Some of you may have read the story somewhere. There's a 9 year-old little boy (Brett) in the Children's Hospital in Birmingham who has a rare brain cancer that is believed to be terminal. There's a hospital in New York that has a treatment that is undergoing clinical trials. Brett's family is on Medicade, which will not cover the treatment because it's still a clinical trial. The treatment (doctors, nurses, travel, staff, etc.) will cost about $100,000.00. So, in a desperate plea, Brett's father, Joe, reaches out to the online community (I first read about it on Fark: http://tinyurl.com/5ureh4). In an amazing show of human compassion, the family raises almost $40,000 (For donations please visit: http://tinyurl.com/4oa7xs)! The story is starting to get a lot of press. The hospital in NY is now telling them that it wasn't the money, it was something else and to please stop contacting the media. The story keeps changing.

So, I signed up to get updates on Brett from the Care Page that was set up for him (http://tinyurl.com/3p4s94). I just got another update today that was a sad reminder to not take the people in our lives for granted. Here's a portion of the post from Tanda (Brett's mom):

Brett's birthday is October 9th. He'll be 10 years old! I hope he will feel up to a little party here. There were plenty of times in the past few months when I didn't think he'd make it to his birthday. It's hard not to get angry knowing that this will be the first birthday when he couldn't eat his own cake, blow out his candle, open his presents or get to play with his new toys. Last year he wanted a Ninja Turtle birthday. I made him a green cake with the turtle shell design and he got, like, ten thousand Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys and accessories. And we bought him a footlocker to keep his favorite toys locked up so his brothers couldn't lose or break them. Now, I'm going to use his footlocker to keep all the things in that help me to remember what he was like before he got sick and became the silent shadow of himself. I miss him. He used to drive me absolutely crazy because he wanted to do everything his own way (which was usually the opposite of mine) and we clashed ALL the time. But now, I would do anything to hear him argue with me. I would welcome his sarcasm and I would not say a word when he came in the apartment with wet, muddy clothes. If I got to hear him say "mom" one more time, I would be the happiest mother in the world.

Oh, god. How did we get here...?

So, thank your children for yelling at you or throwing a fit, because they're still able to. Thank your mother and/or father for asking you the same question 50 times, because they're still here to ask. Thank your husband for coming home late without calling, because he still came home. And thank whoever that you're still able to be a part of it all.