Amelia Reagan: Six Months Old

My little girl is six months old.  She looks just like her daddy and has beautiful blue eyes.  Last month, she learned to crawl, learned to drink from a sippy cup, and cut two teeth (bottom, front).  She is a happy baby.  Just this week she has started crying for me to pick her up the minute I walk in the door from work.  She sees me and just dissolves into tears until I pick her up.  She did this with Peyton last night too.  She has learned to miss us when we are gone and can really let us know it now.  We have to go buy more big bottles  Those little 4 ouncers are not doing it anymore.  She loves sweet potatoes, corn, green beans and especially oatmeal with pears and squash.  She'll eat bananas, but unlike the twins, they are not her favorite.  She weighs 15 lbs and 14 ozs and is 26 inches long.  She loves her big sisters.  She gets really excited when they come home from school.  I feel so blessed to have this little girl in my life.

Broken Heart

There are so many good things that I need to post, but I have been so heart broken that I haven't even been able to blog about it.  Jordan's chemo treatments have not helped her leg.  She will have her right leg amputated just above the knee next Friday, September 10, 2010.  This past week has been the saddest week of my life.  I see my beautiful, bright neice suffering and I just want to take away her pain.  I couldn't have imagined a few months ago that we would ever be going through this.  She was so brave when we went in with the doctors to tell her the news.  I just told her I loved her and that I was going to leave so she could be alone with her mom.  Rustie and Momma are beside themselves with grief.  This is really like losing a member of the family.  We all know it's just her leg and that she will not survive if this operation does not happen soon, but it's so sad.  I've tried over and over again this week to imagine myself in her shoes.  What if I was going through the day today knowing that in one week I would not longer have a leg....an ankle...a foot.  She hasn't had the easiest life up to this point and this just seems like a cruel joke.  Destiny is not handling this very well.  She has really so afraid that she is going to lose her best friend.  We are all going to keep praying for a miracle.  We just need to get past the leg and move on through the rest of the chemo treatments with the hope that they are going to work and she is going to be cured.  I've never found myself at such a loss for words.  Two weeks ago when Jordan was visiting our house for the day, she was holding Amelia and Amelia was really laughing.  Samantha walked over and said:  "I think she likes you because you're a baldy like her."  That was the first time I had seen Jordan laugh in weeks.

****I finished this post and scanned to the bottom of the page and this was my Today in history message. I have never been so shocked or cried so hard.


Marathon of Hope

Terry Fox, The Marathon of Hope is a name given to the cross-Canada run undertaken by cancer patient Terry Fox in 1980. It is commemorated each year with the Terry Fox Run which is an international event that raises money for cancer research.
The initial goal of the run was to raise $1 million to be used for cancer research. After running through Port-Aux-Basques, Newfoundland, Terry changed his goal from raising $1 million to raising $1 for each person in Canada at the time ($24 million).
Beginning in Newfoundland Terry Fox was to run across the country ending on Vancouver Island - a distance of 5,000 km (3,107 miles) at a pace of 42 km (26.1 miles) a day. Unfortunately, Terry Fox's cancer returned while he was in Northern Ontario, and he had to stop the run on September 1, 1980, just outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario.
The goal of the run was to raise money and awareness for cancer research. In order to get the Canadian Cancer Society to support him he had to get corporate sponsorship for the run. Terry Fox sought no personal or financial gain for his efforts. His run was also a 'true' run across Canada; not taking the fastest route, he made sure that he would pass by the most populous regions of the country.

The run begins

Terry Fox began the marathon on a foggy April 12, 1980 from St. John's, Newfoundland. He started by dipping his artificial leg in the Atlantic Ocean. The beginning of the run was marked with little fanfare; only one camera crew from the CBC Television was there to witness his start. He was joined that first day by the mayor of St. John's, who ran for a portion of the marathon.

While running through Gambo, Newfoundland on April 21, Terry was quoted as saying:

"It was an exciting day in Gambo. People came and lined up and gave me ten, twenty bucks just like that. And that's when I knew that the Run had unlimited potential."

Two weeks later while in Port-Aux-Basques, Newfoundland, Terry's idea of raising $1 for each person in Canada was born. In less than 2 hours, the community of 10,000 people, raised $10,000, equal to one dollar per person. Several weeks after Terry left Newfoundland, he found out that this total increased by another $4,000.
The run enters Central Canada

On June 10th Terry entered the Province of Quebec. Still largely unknown, he found it difficult as rude drivers honked their horns or nearly ran him off the road. Some thought he was a hitchhiker and offered to give him a ride. Since he spoke no French, he found it difficult to communicate with Quebecers. As he made his way to Montréal, he garnered more attention from the media and the general public. In early July, Fox arrived in the national capital of Ottawa, where he met with Governor-General Ed Schreyer. On July 4, he met with Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, but the meeting was awkward because Trudeau had returned from a trip to Europe and was not briefed on Fox's situation.

Into Toronto

By the time Terry finally reached Toronto, he had become a media sensation. The streets of the city were lined with thousands of supporters, and a public rally at Toronto City Hall had a crowd of over 10,000. His achievements also began to gain international attention. He was interviewed (while running) by the then popular American current events show That's Incredible!.

The run ends
Statue of Terry Fox overlooking the Trans-Canada HighwayOn September 1, 1980, his run stopped just northeast of Thunder Bay. Poor breathing prevented him from running further; Terry visited a local hospital, where he discovered that his cancer had spread to his lungs. Due to his poor health, from both the return of the cancer and the grueling pace of his running, he had to stop his journey across Canada. By this point he had run for 143 consecutive days totalling 5,373 km.

He returned to British Columbia for further medical treatment. While in hospital, Terry received a telegram from Four Seasons hotel executive Isadore Sharp (who had recently lost his own son to cancer) telling him that his Marathon of Hope would be continued in his honour with an annual run, and that they would not stop until Terry's dream of beating cancer was realized.

Today, a life sized bronze statue of Terry Fox in motion is located in a memorial park along the Trans-Canada Highway, overlooking the spot where he had to end his run.