cancer – Page 2 – CHASE AWAY CANCER

Number 33

Early tomorrow (Monday) Chase will be undergoing (what I believe will be) his 33rd MRI.

Because of the duration and requirements of this test, Chase will be sedated and at the hospital for much of the day. The ability to sedate is a precious mercy for his overstimulated brain and we are thankful.

While Chase sleeps, the medical imaging and radiology teams will analyze every aspect of his whole brain and spine before they send it out to his neurosurgery and neuro-oncology teams. Almost eleven years of unceasing vigilance… such is brain cancer, as many of you know too well.

We are so thankful for all the amazing teams who surround our fighter, and we’d also very much appreciate prayer for his body and heart as he goes under once again.

On Monday evening, he will come home and rest and then we go back to the hospital on Wednesday to meet with the Neurosurgery team and talk results.

Choosing hope.

Moment by moment.

*Chase in the hospital Sky Garden area, March, 2023*

Tell Your Story

It’s been a little while since I’ve written here, and the passing time has been filled with normal life things as we fill the wait time (’til more heart tests) with hope and family.

But dear ones, I just had to share this with you because my own heart is bursting.

This past week, Chase was in the hospital one morning for meetings and tests. After he came back home, he rested for an hour, and got on his feet, written speech in hand, and spoke to his entire school about his story. [his school has an amazing dodgeball event unfolding to raise money for the hospital right now]

Even a few days before he was supposed to do this speech-making, he said he couldn’t find the words. He also said he was too nervous…and that he felt like he didn’t understand his history. At one point, he even told the assistant principal that he simply refused to do it unless his teachers promised him that there would be no homework for the rest of the week (Oh, Chase…).

In truth, I didn’t know how he would do do this. His original tumor was in his language center and he would have to read his written speech, paper in one hand, mic in the other, balancing, all in front of hundreds of eyes and peers. It felt like a moment when all the weakness, brokenness and fears could converge.

But in the actual moment, dear ones, the fear just melted away. He waved off the help that was offered and stood totally alone in the middle of the polished gym floor and read out, loud and proud. His paper in one hand; the mic in the other. And he nailed it.

Don’t be afraid to tell your story, dear ones.

It may be hard to put your history into words, to put yourself before eyes and peers, but it will also be precious in ways you can only imagine.

-MbM-

Epilogue: Chase was given no homework on the day he spoke. His teachers are amazing.

Chase’s Speech [dear ones, he composed this himself!]

Hi, my name is Chase Ewoldt. I have been fighting two cancers for almost 11 years. When I first got sick, I was sent to Lurie Children’s in an ambulance and it became my far away from home. Getting cancer can be really scary, but the doctors work hard to find me the right treatments and help me feel comfortable. Even this week, I was in the hospital and I’m doing okay, but there are lots of kids like me every day who need help. So when it comes to dodgeball and raising money for Lurie Children’s… GAME ON!

13×13 – “$13 For 13 Years” – aka: Chase’s Birthday Fundraiser

Monday, December, 12, 2022 –

By all rights and data, our precious Chase should have never seen a 3rd year, let alone a 13th birthday! Yet, here we are and Chase still lives and breathes joy (and sass) into our family and the world around him.

Once again this year, Chase asked that for his birthday fundraiser, all donations be equally divided between Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and the Anthony Rizzo Family Foundation.

And honestly, we can’t think of a more fitting plan! Lurie has brought Chase life more times than we can count, and the Rizzo Foundation has instilled so much hope – and Hope and Life go hand in hand in so many precious ways.

So after much discussion with our Lurie and Rizzo families, THIS PAGE was put together. All the funds will rest there, so we can see a grand total, and then when all is said and done, the Rizzo Family will write a check for half of the total, on Chase’s behalf, to Lurie Children’s – because of YOU, dear ones!

Would you consider making a donation? You can give $13 (or a multiple of 13…or more!) in honor of Chase’s 13 years. Every dollar counts – and it feels like it counts double this year – as the dollars will go to help a child like Chase and a family like ours – often in their most stressful, heartbreaking moments – both in the hospital with Lurie and around the country with ARFF.

With your help, we can contribute to research, resources and encouragement for so many children like Chase.

On behalf of the fighters and families supported by Lurie Children’s Hospital and the Anthony Rizzo Family Foundation…

THANK YOU.

**PLEASE feel FREE to share the fundraiser link far and wide!!**

Of Insurance, Hard Things, and TEN YEARS MORE…

It’s been a while and it’s been hard to put into words…
This almost done Fall has been a strange, stretching time filled with both wonderfully normal things, and hard, intense growing things – or, at least I hope we’re growing from them.

Some weeks ago now, we began a struggle to have Chase’s insurance continue covering a couple of his medications.
I will forever be thankful that we weren’t fighting for an anticonvulsant (a seizure med – without which, we’d all be in really big trouble), but one of the things we were fighting for was the medication that helps him with his executive function. And without it…? Everything is just MORE. There’s more energy and laughter, yes, but there’s also more anger, frustration and sadness too. And it’s all coming quicker – shot from a damaged and dis-regulated brain – faster than Chase or any of us can handle.

We have been given so much grace and peace to do this thing. And yet, all the other things that don’t get done during this season – that’s where it hurts. That’s where and when the caring for our sweet boy pulls at whatever is left of our patience. It’s a weird in-between place where we know everything will be okay some day, but today is not that day. So we breathe, beg for extra grace, and walk… moment by moment, knowing as hard as it is for us, it’s equally, if not exponentially harder for Chase himself.

…and yet, dear ones, even as intensely weary as this season is, even as we liaison with his doctors and watch him carefully for signs of liver and heart issues until the January MRI, dear ones… tomorrow, Monday, December 12th, Chase Stratton Elliot Ewoldt will be thirteen years old. An actual teenager.

In some ways, it’s a very strange thing because his chronological age will be 13, but his intellectual age is a sliding scale… and the age of his heart and bones after all that he’s seen and done…? It’s got to be near 90, if it’s a day.

But I remember so clearly the moments at that first hospital conference table when we talked about the miracle it would take to get him to his third birthday. That third birthday was the goal…and while all the words were positive and hopeful, I felt it in my heart like I could see it in their eyes…nobody expected him to see the day.

So, to see the day…plus TEN YEARS MORE…?

That feels like an incredible moment in the hard journey. And we are treating it as such.

So watch this space all Monday… “$13 for 13 years” celebration kicks off here and I’m so excited to see how our celebration of Chase can impact life for so many others like him. *watch for the donation link in the morning!*

Looking forward with great hope…
MbM.

*Photo: “Chase Running”, by Margaret Henry*

Sing Over Me: On Grief and Joy

The end of July is a strange shadow season to me. Some years are easier than others, but not this year. Perhaps it is the marking of the first decade, but even now, the feel of the hot Midwest wind, the position of the sun on the earth; all of the July-ness seems to drag me back to a moment in time when the fabric of our lives felt like it had been torn in two. It is a memory now, yes, but I’ve come to equate this time of year with a deep grief and it tends to resurface every year no matter how I prepare or how far away from it we are now. And every year, I ask myself why it comes up, where it goes when it passes (which it inevitably does), and finally, how to hold it carefully with open hands and a purposeful heart.

I think I will probably ask these same questions until the day I die, but as I wrestle and ask my way through them this tenth year, I think about everyone who ever stood bedside and wished for less suffering even while they’re thankful the one they love still breathes. And I think about everyone who ever stood graveside with a broken, bleeding soul, still breathing pain-filled thanks that there’s no more pain. My heart goes out to everyone who has ever smiled through their tears and everyone who has ever cried for no reason other than that life is just so…very…hard.

My heart is for you as I struggle with the questions again, wrestle through the shadows of a timeline long past, because I cried most of this last week. The good and the bad were all mixed together and that brings a lot of feelings.

It’s such a gift.

We are so thankful.

Chase is a miracle.

But he’s also been hurting more than not for ten years and we’ve all hurt with him. We are tired and I know he is too.

Thinking through all of these pieces, I cried because I couldn’t see the purpose for the shadows. I cried because I wanted to move past this late July part and move into the place where I could feel the light again.

But the light didn’t come right away as it sometimes does. I felt empty. And after fighting it and excusing it and even trying to tamp it down all week, I realized that it is not so bad to need to grieve. It is not wrong to weep for the brokenness that is as ever present as Chase’s very life.

We celebrate Chase, but we weep for him too. Does that make sense? I hope it does. It’s how I can smile as I watch him run even as my eyes fill with tears.

The good and the hard rarely come in their separate turns – have you ever noticed that? More often, they seem to arrive all wrapped up together in such a way that thankfulness and grief walk hand in hand – usually with a white-knuckled grip.

So where did I land in my grief this time around? I landed here: there is One who knows; who understands. Psalm 56 describes how our tears aren’t wasted to Him. Our grief isn’t meaningless and our struggles are important and known.

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.
Psalm 56:8 NLT

So, if you want to, if you need to today (as I have needed to this week)…I hope you are able to cry. It is not a bad thing to mourn all the things we wish were other than what they are. And afterwards, dry your tears knowing they were Seen and remember with me (as I remember in this Chase fight) that while the pain and weariness might feel like forever and a day, it’s only a dark night and the dawn is coming. And when the dawn arrives, there will be joy once again.

Giving raw thanks for Chase’s life and unfolding story…

Moment by moment.

With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.
Zepheniah 3:17b

Tag: cancer