“It’s so hard to believe she is sick,” Tim Craig wrote on his blog while his four-and-a-half year-old daughter Scarlet bounced and played in the courtyard of Portland’s Doernbecher Children’s hospital. Scarlet had a tumor near her adrenal gland – the “mother tumor,” doctors called it – and another in her right pelvic region. She had already received a blood transfusion, a bone marrow biopsy, been stuck with needles and tubes and seen the word “oncology” much sooner than anyone should ever have to. But still, Scarlet “ran around and played with her sister and her friend Eric,” Tim wrote, holding those tiny moments close for when he’d need them the most.Read more →

Five-year-old Layla kicked cancer at age five. After six rounds of chemotherapy, she knows exactly where your blood donations go.Read more →

Gracie Lindal was the answer to her parents’ prayers – a bright, bubbly girl who loved music and snuggling with her beloved stuffed Ducky. She was 8 years old when she was diagnosed with ITP, a platelet-destroying disease that caused a brain bleed that took her life in December 2011.Read more →

In February, my fiancé, Kathy and I visited Thailand. We toured grand palaces and Buddhist temples and floating markets around the sprawling capital of Bangkok, then traveled north to mountainous Chiang Mai where we walked with elephants and learned to make Thai food. Then the plan was to finish with beach time on the island of Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand. It was the kind of trip you look forward to for months. A dream vacation. And indeed, most of it was a dream. Most of it.Read more →