Friday, August 5, 2011

Angels Among Us

Angels Among Us
Quite often every day tasks get me stressed and busy and I'm not able to focus on the things that matter. It takes a day like yesterday when I was working on Angels Among Us tasks to bring me out of my bubble and help me realize that things could be much worse or difficult to handle. I've been on the Angels Among Us board of directors since 2008 and it has truly been a rewarding experience. Everything we do in this orgnization is geared toward raising money to help families who have a child battling cancer.

When I was more involved in the family advocacy part of this program, I was able to work with the families more directly and to hear some of their stories was absolutely heartbreaking. Most of these parents had to quit their jobs in order to make it to doctor's appointments and treatments with their children in hopes they could find a cure to make them better. They were stressed about paying every day bills while out of work, but were trying to balance that stress with maintaining a positive demeanor for their child. That's why Angels is so special - we are able to work with these families and pay some of their monthly bills so they can focus on their child during this difficult time.

One of the families we helped in the past had triplet girls and one of their triplets had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). Recently she went into remission which is such an amazing thing for that family. Earlier this week, they contacted us and gave us heartbreaking news, one of their other triplets has been diagnosed with ALL and they asked if they could go back on the Angels program. It's hard for me to imagine how this family can go through so much not only with one of their children, but now to have to go through the same thing with another child is devastating. That is the most difficult thing about being involved with Angels, hearing what these families are having to go through with their young kids. No child or family should ever have to experience this disease.

I am very fortunate to have gotten involved in this organization and while I have different types of stresses in my life, I realize that what I am going through doesn't even compare to that of these families - so taking hours out of my week to plan our upcoming events or attend board meetings is simply one small thing I can do to help and I'm lucky to have the opportunity.

Check us out:
http://www.myangelsamongus.org/

No comments:

Post a Comment

Your comments make me smile! Thanks for taking the time to share some love =)