CampTastic

Shanna, Lauren, Danielle, and Hannah - Survivors at Camp Jornada

Day 442:

"How about when people say It's got to be good to be back to normal," a parent near me spoke up.

We were attending a parent meeting at Camp Jornada yesterday, when our guest speaker, Dr. Creagans (a top oncologist in the nation) asked what we as parents had to reveal to him in terms of what we go through. Dr. Creagans works in the adult oncology department at Mayo and wanted to learn something from the parents of children with cancer.

Camp Jornada is a week long camp for kids and their siblings dealing with cancer. We went to check it out this time and possibly for the kids to go to next year.

"Yeah,... that's a tough one. There really is no normal once you've had this experience," the doctor said with a sense of bewilderment himself. He's had thousands of patients over the years and can understand the feelings that accompany cancer, but he himself has never had to deal with it within his immediate family.

One of the things I will take away from his speech is that we can take this cancer experience and put it in a box and place it on a shelf (metaphorically). To not let cancer define who you are now.

It's these type of meetings that just help bring you back to center as you share and listen to other parents who go through the same things. Dr. Craegans equates the gathering of people sharing a common thread to that of AA (started back in 1935) - alcoholics drawing strength from others who have dealt with a lot of the same issues of the disease.


Hannah had a visit with her radiology-oncologist this morning and while things went very well, Dr. Laack would like to have scans done. She mentioned the fact that Hannah's tumor has a high recurrence rate within the first two years. So moving scans back to every 6 months seemed a bit unsettling for now.

"Will the EMG hurt?" Hannah probed as many people in Dr. Laack's office as she could. Most had no idea. Dr. Laack was a different story.

"Well,..... yes," Dr. Laack didn't want to hide a thing. "It will feel like bee stings when they are putting the needles in. Then when they begin the electrical pulses, with your arm already being sensitive, it will hurt more than say a typical person." Hannah had a smile on her face that looked like a cross between wanting to be happy that Dr. Laack had been honest with her and that of I'm panicked and don't know what else to do, but smile.

Currently Hannah's in having her EMG done. "Hannah Kelly!" the voice over the loud speaker resonated through the waiting room. We all got up to go back with her, but as we approached the nurse, she gave a rather stern eye in my direction. "Only one parent may come back for this one," she said glancing at both of us as if there was a debate to be had between Kim and myself. Nope - not a word,... I just turned myself around and got comfy.