Prologue

Prologue

You know those commercials that come on T.V., asking you for money to find a cure for this disease or that disease and you donate what you can because you can't imagine what its like to ever go through something like that?  I dislike them so much. I loathe them in fact. Not because they ask for money, but because children are sick.  So sick in fact that some die. No child should die. Not one.  I hate to think of what their families are going through, finding out that their child has some type of cancer or another debilitating disease that is in some way life-threatening.  I thank God that it isn't my child and give what I can to support the cause.  I throw my change into the Ronald McDonald house donation bin at McDonald's drive-thru when I get my coffee in the am, knowing that it's a place where families can stay to be close to their sick child and not have to worry about high-cost accommodations.  I can't afford much, but I know that every little bit helps and I can only imagine how grateful I would be if I were in their shoes.

I go about my daily business never giving it another thought.  I complain about the weather, get tired of doing the same thing over and over again.  Bitch about the phones and the traffic on the drive home. I dread the thought of living another day like the one before, yet it happens all the time and somehow I manage to get through it.

Then it hits like a ton of bricks, knocks us on our ass and we stumble to our feet thinking our whole world will fall apart around us.  Our child has cancer.  Our child has cancer.  Words I will never forget hearing. Never in a million years would I have thought it could happen to us but it did and now we have to figure out how we are going to get through something like this.  We have a new normal now.  A normal that others can not comprehend.  Others who are blessed to have healthy children. Others who can go to work every day and come home to a healthy family.  Others who can watch those T.V. commercials and say "I am so glad that hasn't happened to my family."    You know, things that we used to say before Axel was diagnosed with Leukemia. Before our lives changed more than we could ever have possibly imagined.