How are we?

Emily is doing great today, she's even requested a play date with a classmate of hers. We are excited she wants to do that. Most of today's post is about the Pepper family and not specifically about Emily.

Many people of have asked directly or indirectly how we are all holding out? How we are? If we are doing ok? Etc. I can assure you that Emily has a "Care Team" and that includes her Oncologist and his medical staff, there is also access to social workers, and psychologists and other support services. They check in with us to see how we are coping and what they can do to help. They have helped by listening, and also helping us get things done. They have our whole family in mind for the care plan.

I really can't directly answer, even for me, how I am. That changes from day to day, moment to moment. Sometimes I'm up beat and positive, optimistic, then sad, angry, afraid, overwhelmed. I remember the first night when we were transferred from the ER to the Pediatric Oncology ward the first thing they said to Tracy and I was "I want you both to know that this is neither of your fault." To me it seems odd that people would blame themselves for their children getting cancer, but apparently that is so common that it's the first thing they say. I wanted to blame her Dr. in the beginning of all this, how could he have missed this just 6 days before the ER nightmare? I have learned he couldn't have known, and we found out in a very common way for Lymphoma.

I have a degree in psychology, and I remember there was a theory on grief called the Kublar Ross model of grief. Kublar-Ross's theory identified 5 stages of grief, they are, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and acceptance. I can say that we both Tracy and I have experienced these stages to some degree or another.

I also want to assure all of you that we are taking care of ourselves, and using the mental health benefits we have on our insurance and that is being provided to us by the medical staff. You can't get through all this without some level of support and some outlet to vent. So when I say we are "OK" it means we are dealing with this the best we can. We are taking advantage of the support and working in what we have time to do for ourselves. The most important thing is we ARE dealing with this head on, we couldn't have it any other way for our family or for Emily. When this first started I told myself, that no matter the outcome, I would only let this make our family stronger. My room mate from college is a childhood Lymphoma cancer survivor and he shared with me first hand many times how the cancer had an impact on his entire family. He survived and is a great and successful person, but cancer paid a high toll on him and his family. It will on ours too, but I want to minimize the negative and grasp onto what we can do to be stronger more giving people after this. Emily will be so strong there will be no stopping her and the rest of us Peppers.