Mary Beth Quirk:
Three daughters who recently lost their mother to cancer say they were kicked out of the King of Prussia Mall outside of Philadelphia for sporting a unique tribute to her. Two of the women were wearing black-and-pink hats designed by a family friend that read “F – - K CANCER” with the C in the naughty word replaced by a pink breast-cancer-awareness ribbon. They claim that on Sunday, a security guard told them they had to take of their hats, or leave the mall.
Four years ago this week, I wrote this:
I never thought I’d be the one to write a mass email like this. People you don’t know write emails like this. People your mother-in-law works with; those people write emails like this.
Needless to say, I’m shocked. But here we are.
Doctors have found a “significant” tumor on the interior of the right side of Josiah’s brain via a CT scan this afternoon. They are unsure what the tumor is at this point in time. The tumor is blocking the drainage system built into the brain, meaning that cranial fluid can’t escape.
Last Friday, our son Josiah was granted his wish: to go to Florida and see where Mickey Mouse lives.
Before being hurled in to the world of pediatric cancer, I thought Make-A-Wish just sent kids who were dying on trips, but in reality, they serve any family whose child has a life-threatening medical condition. While Josiah is stable, he’s not out of the woods.
The group has met the wishes of more than 250,000 children around the world. It’s crazy to be a part of that number now.
I spent most of the morning fighting back tears as our son was awarded a Make-a-Wish trip to Disney World.
..and he may kill us all. But hey, it could be worse: this maniac could be launching nuclear weapons from one of those stupid new thin iMacs.
David Banks at Wired is making my eyes all wet.
Today is a dark day for the Internet community, and a stark reminder of just how powerful of a disease depression can be.
Speaking of St. Jude, here’s a video we did with the hospital a couple of years ago.
Over the last few days, I’ve been tweeting about one of Josiah’s “little friends” who — without much warning — entered the final days of his battle with brain cancer late last week.
This morning, this little 3-year-old boy passed away.
(To make it hit closer to home, this kid had the same thing our son has, and they ended up at St. Jude after reading about Josiah and his diagnosis.)
Over the last 39 months, we’ve seen a lot of families come and go from St. Jude. Some kids respond really well to treatment and live cancer-free after chemotherapy and radiation. Other kids, however, don’t share that fate, succumbing to the disease, despite receiving literally the best care in the world.
ESPN:
The NCAA has hit Penn State with a $60 million sanction, a four-year football postseason ban and a vacation of all wins dating to 1998, the organization said Monday morning.
The career record of Joe Paterno will reflect these vacated records, the NCAA said.
Penn State must also reduce 10 initial and 20 total scholarships each year for a four-year period.
Nothing can set right the wrongs done at Penn State, but nevertheless, this is the right move by the NCAA.
The Dark Knight Rises director Christopher Nolan, on the shooting in Aurora.
It’s a big month in our household. Our little Allison Mae is turning two years old, which is crazy. She’s talking, potty-training and climbing all over everything.
Allison’s birthday will always be linked — in my mind, at least — with the end of Josiah’s treatment. Just weeks before she was born, he underwent the last round of chemo of his custom treatment plan.
Josiah’s chemo was months of an ever-worsening roller coaster. At the beginning, he bounced right back (amazing for a 7-month old), but as time went on, he took longer to recover. We had more days and nights living in fear of a fever. Day and nights of cleaning his toys over and over. Bottles of hand sanitizer were used. By his last few rounds, he was getting blood every time, to help his body cope with the fact that the chemicals were doing more and more damage to his bone marrow each time.