MAKE CHANGE, BEAT CANCER

My aunt and her husband are both battling cancer.  My Uncle Howard is not doing very well at all.  He has hairy cell leukemia and his blood marrow has quit producing blood and platelets.  He is living on "borrowed blood" according to my aunt.  He has to undergo blood transfusions.  My Aunt Audie (Audrea Ann - who Audrianna is named for) has breast cancer and underwent a lumpectomy and has to have 4 more weeks of radiation.  She has to travel out of town for the radiation, not too far, but far enough, especially in this snowy weather.  Her daughter will be staying with my uncle (taking time off work 2 hours a day) to sit with her dad while her mother goes to radiation.  I am only telling this story because they mean the world to me.  I love my aunt like nobody else.  She has loved me unconditionally even when my own mother did not.  She took me into her home on more than one occasion and let me live with them when my parents changed the locks on their door and told me to never come home again.  She let me hide upstairs when my father came over to collect any presents they had ever given me so that they could give them to my younger sister.  There are no words to explain how much she means to me.  Whenever I talk to her on the phone, I feel like a little girl.  When I feel down and out, all I have to hear is her saying "I love you honey" and the world is good.  I live in Oklahoma, they live in south central Kansas, a 3 hour drive from here, but if I had a car I would be going to see them as often as possible.  I even volunteered to move back to take care of them if they need me.  I would do anything for my aunt, all she has to do is ask.

Tonight I was discussing this situation and Audrianna overheard me.  She was very concerned about their health and when I told her they both had cancer, she wanted to know if Uncle Howard could hold on until she got her money to him.  I had no idea what she was talking about.  Then she started explaining.  Her school is having a fundraiser.  Make Change, Beat Cancer.  They are collecting change for leukemia research.  She told me the only way she could get the money to him was to give it to her school and she hopes he gets it quick enough so he can be better.  I love this girl.  She took the sting out of the day.

I lost both my parents to cancer, my mother to ocular melanoma which spread to her liver and my father to lung cancer after he smoked 3 packs a day for God knows how long, all his life it seemed.  I feel like I am going through it all over again.

My Aunt Audie and Uncle Howard  (my 17-year-old daughter Marissa calls him Howard the Duck.  He is quite the character).