Light the Night Speech for Vistar

I wanted to share one of our LLS speeches on the blog. I delivered this speech on a web conference  fundraising kick off for Vistar, one of the National corporate Light The Night sponsors. This is basically the transcript from the YouTube video.

It was 2010 and Charlie had just celebrated his 3^rd birthday and was limping and complaining of foot pain. Being new parents, we took him to the podiatrist, to the pediatrician, and ultimately to the orthopedic.  I think we were on our fifth visit to the hospital, third visit to the orthopedics, maybe our tenth x-ray, but only our first complete blood workup, when the results came back.

We heard: “We found blast cells in Charlie’s blood. He has cancer.” Specifically Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. We had come to treat a broken leg, but were admitted to oncology and by the end of the evening; Charlie was receiving his first doses of chemo.  

Over the course of treatment, Charlie’s little body was pummeled by a barrage of surgeries, drugs, and  side-effect after side-effect. We watched our happy-go-lucky three year boy fade away into a moody, sickly looking figure that hardly resembled his former self.  What I call our Treatment Transformation. 

Learning to be parent a Child with a terminal cancer was difficult. Yes, Charlie’s cancer is considered terminal even though his cure rate is over 85% for his risk factor. We decided to keep things as normal as possible in his little life. Charlie stayed in preschool through the majority of treatment. When he was too sick or tired or had no immunity left he would stay home with Mom. But other than that we tried to do fun things such as hikes, gardening and playing outdoors. We developed a ‘New Normal’ as we like to call it. And that included trips to the hospital for simple things like the flu or scarier things like pneumonia which could have killed him. 

These trips to the hospital became bonding times for Mom and Dad and Charlie and introduced us to an amazing community, one that nobody ever expects that they will be a part of.  Since being a part of the LLS community, Charlie has been given the opportunity to participate in a St. Patrick’s Day Parade, received tickets for Broncos football and Avalanche hockey games.  In the life and mind of a five year old, these are not trivial events, especially when he was too sick to get off the couch some weekends. 

For two years of Charlie’s Leukemia journey, we were on the receiving end of all the good things LLS does for families like ours.  The educational materials, the exciting events and of course, the treatment that Charlie was undergoing are all the product of vast amounts of donations, research ,and hard work by individuals associated with LLS.  

Last year we decided it was time to start giving back and we formed our Light the Night Team, Charlie’s Cancer Crushers.  Knowing that we were doing something good for other people with experiences like our own, challenged us to do more.  This year LLS gave us another great opportunity when they asked us if Charlie could be the LLS Honored Hero for this year’s Light the Night event. 

His representation is the perfect culmination to the 3 ½ year therapy that as you can see ended this past June! Charlie received his last injection of chemo and his last pill. We were thrilled.

We are here today not only to share Charlie’s story, but to let you know there is still a lot of work yet to be done.  Midway through Charlie’s treatment, my favorite uncle battled (AML) another form of Leukemia, only to succumb to the disease after 5 months. Attending his funeral and returning home to my cancer patient was one of the hardest things I’ve had to endure.

That is why it is so important for companies like yours to get involved with Light The Night this year. We are still losing battles! To combat this, in 2012 alone, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society invested 100 million dollars in blood cancer research, and over 10 million dollars to Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, the specific type of cancer that Charlie had.  This is one of the many reasons why we decided to get involved and to do everything we can to educate others about the importance of raising funds for this organization.  We hope that like us, you too decide to join in the fight to create a world free of blood cancer. Thank you.