Ingram the Conqueror: Wednesday and Thursday December 5th and 6th, Necessary Roughness?

So the past few days have been a little rough around here. Ingram and the girls are fine; they're actually doing well I think, but those sweet hearts of the girls store a whole lot of emotions and we never know when one is about to overflow. Lindsey lost two teeth in 24 hours and Madison got her braces adjusted in a way that she does not like, and she informs us of it almost constantly. Ingram has had a fun time at home and at school and got to play with his favorite gal Mae this afternoon. Oddly enough, Beau has even been behaving aside from perfecting his role as a guard dog of our front yard when folks walking by and the occasional "greeting" of new people's legs. We really hope he outgrows this soon!!

I guess really the only thing going haywire around here has been emotions and I guess it's also okay to say that they are my emotions. In the midst of getting things done, autopilot is the default mode of operation. But when things settle down and there's no rushing around, that's when it sneaks up. One minute there's laughter and the next minute there's tears out of the blue. The more I try to get us back to some sort of normal, the harder I realize it is; seriously what is normal anyway? Our life will never be normal again because at any given second something could happen to make us think that Ingram's tumor is back. His cancer is an aggressive kind, the statistics are not in our favor, and every other Ependymoma patient we've met, with the exception of one, have been recurrences. We have been so blessed beyond measure for how "smoothly" our road has been even in the midst of Ingram's battle, but there are so many of our friends that have lost their babies to this monster, way to many are still in the middle of their battle, and many more that are gearing up for another fight and praying for a miracle.

Even things that should bring joy are really hard to do right now! Today I was driving down the road and just burst out into tears listening to the radio. The next thing I know, I'm crying while I'm trying to go Christmas shopping; not because I don't want to Christmas shop, but because what I want, I can't buy. I want a cure for childhood cancer. I want children and their families to not suffer, to not be separated, to not have to go through surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. I want brothers and sisters of patients to not feel left out, to not have to grow up too fast, to not be jealous of the attention that their brother or sister gets. I don't want to go shopping for "stuff" that we have too much of anyway. I want to buy a cure for cancer and I'll pay any amount needed to make that happen.