This summer has been nice. I'm on a chemo break so, unlike last year, I get to do more activities with the kids. My hubby and I have been trying to take them to more playgrounds, to get them outside in the nice weather. We were gifted some passes for a local park called Upper Clements Park from a good friend so we took the two oldest up for a day of rides and adventures. They had a blast, my back took a beating but it's par for the course these days.
A friend had started up a GoFundMe page for our family, but it's not really taken off. I'm not a cute little kid in need, I'm not totally bed ridden yet, so I don't get a lot of funding coming my way. A lot of people don't think I'm sick when they see me. My hair is coming back (thanks to a lovely lady, it's blue and purple currently), I'm looking healthier because I've gone down almost 4 pants sizes, I'm not displaying the tired, sunken, daunted appearance that most associate with terminal cancer. In fact, at first I didn't want to go near fundraising for two reasons:
1. I'm stubborn. I've worked for what I've wanted since I can remember. I would pet-sit, had a paper route, made/sold crafts, got a job in the school cafeterias at lunch, had an after school job, frig, I always had a job, I was always earning my keep, I had to go on EI once and hated it. Now, I need help because I can't just go out and get a job. I can't seem to sell my art because it's so easy for cheap crap and cheap crap artists to flood the market that quality handmade items are deemed too expensive. This leaves me with basically asking for help because my husband's salary is taking a hit with all the extras that have popped up because of cancer.
2. This is going to just seem pessimistic to many of you, but it really hasn't given me many signs to the contrary. People don't give a shit when you don't look like death with cancer. They don't understand "living with cancer", the mass populace still thinks cancer is curable in all forms if caught early. Stage four breast cancer is not understood, breast cancer is over used to fatten corporations' pocketbooks with that fucking pink ribbon/save the tatas/save second base/etc bullshit. Once you get passed that, my other thought along the same line, not enough people really want to help. There's been so many con-artists that they just think people want free money.
Now I'll tell you why I agreed to fundraising.
I had hoped, hoped and hoped, I was wrong. I hoped that people would support me as much as others that are/were in our community. I saw friends helping raise over $10,000 for people so they could go on family vacations, pay off cancer bills, just not have to worry about money. And those people weren't even terminal! So I hoped we would be able to have the same happen to us. I mean, I have hundreds of friends out there, lots of people that say they want to help out, so why not? I could take the kids to Disneyland or Disneyworld, my hubby and I could have a special night to ourselves without incurring more debt, we could pay down the bills so that his salary was more than capable of handling the surprises and fumbles along the way... I actually got excited. Then I saw exactly what I had originally thought come to light. People say they'll come but they don't. People say they'll support, but they won't. I can't expect the same people that actually commit and keep their word to support me and my family. That's a burden I don't want to place on them.
Not everything is dismal, however. Like I said, we were able to go to Upper Clements Park and another friend let us know about a great place in PEI that has something available for terminally ill people and their families. We'll probably be digging the hole deeper, but we'll be having memories made for the kids. Things they can look back on and be fond of. I'll find solace in that.
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