FFS Friday - Where My Heart Broke For a Stranger

I have the most long winded, whiniest FFS Friday post for you, but now that is for next week.

I will keep this short for you today because I don't think I've got enough words without tears that I could properly explain how I feel about this.

I have two of the most beautiful, kind, generous, cranky, stubborn, happy, bouncy and healthy children. They drive me endlessly crazy, make me endlessly happy and their tiny little hugs and fingers and toes, cheeks and ears and eyes and hair and arms and shoulders make me so squishy and happy inside. They are also two of the healthiest kids around.

(as I type this, one of them is snoring and the other is banging on the wall in an attempt to tell me that she is not tired and does not with to sleep and that her teeth and ears are hurting.)

There was a little boy named Leo who suffered from Rhabdomyosarcoma, a form of childhood cancer that I know nothing about. You can find some info here. His family have a Facebook page set up to document his well-being as well as connect with caring people.

His family are friends of a friend, and I checked in from time to time to offer support and see how Leo was faring. Today, they posted this and my heart just broke.

This afternoon we said goodbye to Leo. While his Granny, Uncle Jade and Aunty Anna prayed over him, Leo breathed out and just didn't breath in again. We know our family will be re-united in Heaven but right now, as parents, we are utterly heartbroken.

I cried and cried. Leo is around the same age as my kids and I cannot fathom what it would mean to watch one of them suffer an incurable, painful illness and to watch them lost their battle. Not even a little tiny bit.

I'm a huge supporter of The Kid's Cancer Project. If you can spare $5, send it their way. I would love to help ensure that no parents or carers ever have to experience what the Fogarty family are experiencing right now.

Dot Points.

In lieu of a proper post (as if I do those anyway) here's my life in dot points.

Drinking : Black tea, coffee, decaf coffee, decaf tea, water. Oh, and the yummy yummy Strawberry Lime Rekorderlig.
Reading: I've just finished 'Running and Stuff' by James Adams. It's one of the most enjoyable books about running I've read.

Wanting: Sleep. Sewing time. Quiet time.
Looking: at the girls eating pasta with tuna and watching a movie.
Playing: hair washing games with Pippa. Comprises of Pippa 'washing' my hair with a dry sponge. Feels delightful.
Wasting: Toddler food. Still.
Sewing: I've cut up my Marmalade Fat Quarter bundle to make a me-quilt using this pattern. Exciting!
Wishing: People would stop turning up at the door when I'm wearing my size 16 preggo trackpants.
Enjoying: Caitlin Park's album, The Sleeper. Beautiful.
Waiting: For my runjuries to heal.
Liking: My new chest freezer. I know. Nerdy, right?
Wondering: What sized tubs I could fit in the new freezer to properly categorise the incoming meat?
Loving: Pippa's beautiful hands and feet, and the squeezy hugs she gives everyone.
Marvelling: At the fact that when I was pregnant I fed my body food and it made babies. Way to be weird, bodies.

Needing: Patience.
Smelling: Tuna pasta.
Wearing: Aforementioned trackpants, a comfortable shirt and hiking socks. All glamour.
Following: Toddlers, issuing gentle reminders of cleaning up pipe cleaners and cotton balls.
Noticing: My girls are beginning to look more alike.
Knowing: that everything is okay.
Thinking: About coordinating fabrics.

Feeling: Happy but infinitely thankful that it's almost bedtime.
Bookmarking: Health fund options. Rock and roll. I went with Health.com.au in the end. Their customer service is fantastic and prices amazing. After 12 years with Bupa they wound up making me feel manipulated and fearful for my health if I didn't have cardiothoracic cover. 
Opening: My eyes.
Giggling: At Millie's Millie-isms. She'd like some 'pricewhee' whilst she goes to the toilet, please. 
Feeling: All the feels. Post race endorphins have worn off, pain receptors are firing and I am feeling all the feels.

I leave you with this amazing quote from Kate Gordon's blog - 

'Life can be so many bricks on bricks. They are hard and they are heavy and they are too solid to break. But between them there are slivers of courageous light and it’s in those slivers that, if you squint hard enough, you can see fairies dancing.

Of course, with me, there always has to be fairies.

And you can’t be sad, not really, knowing that there are fairies. And if you don’t believe in them, not any more, just ask my small, sweet girl. She’ll tell you that they’re real. And, when she tells you this, you try and tell me there’s no hope in this world.'

FFS Friday - Cancer Can Bite Me

• I've been meaning to write a FFS Friday every week since my last one. FFS.
• I remember at about 12pm (children need food and attention) and 6pm (dinnertime, children need food and attention) and then as I'm climbing in to bed at 10pm (too late, whatever, next week) FFS.
• I will never be a professional blogger. FFS.
• Before I continue on my interesting, worthy story plot ranting let me tell you about cancer and how it's touched my life.
• The biggest one? My dad died from metastatic melanoma in 2007. FFS.
• Mr S has had two BCCs on his face. FFS.
• Mr and Mrs S Snr have had various BCCs removed. FFS.
• My paternal grandmother, Norma, has had breast cancer and mastectomies. FFS.
• My friend Marija has beaten breast cancer (NO FFS) and is about to become a mother (ABSOLUTELY NO FFS IT IS AWESOME).
• Friends of friends have cancer.
• I have just had a mole removed from my back that looked suspicious enough for me to tell me GP, and suspicious enough for her to remove it. FFS.
• It stings like a bitch. FFS.

Cancer, you can bite me. By the time my children grow up, I want cancer to be in the same sentence as polio, smallbox, rubella and measles. You know, ailments we used to get.

I started running seriously at the beginning of this year. I run for my mental health, I run for cake, I run for wine, I run to get away from my children and I run because I love the feeling of my feet taking me wherever I want, and the promise of there perhaps being a coffee at the end of that run.

This is my BRFAARBF (Best Running Friend And All Round Best Friend) and I after we finished our first race together, the Mona GASP run.

Best. Fun. Ever.

This Sunday is Mother's Day. Instead of a sleep in (HA) and breakfast in bed (HA) we will be sweating, red faced (Louise) and swearing (me) whilst making up new song lyrics about running to popular songs (me, Louise wants no part in that). We'll be running the 8km course of the Hobart Mother's Day Classic. I've set up a little fundraising page and I would appreciate it dearly if you could head over there and kick in a few dollars. Every dollar counts and every dollar means that we could be one step closer to making cancer a preventable illness.

I've helpfully linked all the 'FFS' tags to take you to my fundraising page, just to make it easier for you.

So, let me enlighten you with some of my running FFS, just to keep you amused before you click over to the fundraising page and help me spread the word!

• I have barely been running for the last two weeks due to horrifically painful shin splints. FFS.
• My chiropractor, who is also an ultra distance trail runner suggested I not run at all for a fortnight, ice, stretch, foam roll, see a sports physio and get a bone scan for stress fractures. FFS.
• My GP, who is also a runner, said the same thing. FFS.
• I lasted 7 days without running before I wanted to stab everyone within a 5 metre radius of me. FFS.
• The girls have been helping with my ice routine by taking the frozen peas out of the zip lock bag to eat them. FFS.
• They won't eat cooked peas. FFS.
• I trod on a soft squashed pea the next day. FFS.
• On carpet. FFS.
• The mole I've had removed is stitched up nicely. My Doctor had removed it and was chatting away merrily to me when I saw the needle and stitch thread. 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING?'
  'Putting stitches in. What do you mean?'
  'YOU DID NOT SAY THERE WOULD BE STITCHES.'
  'You have a GIANT hole in your back. You need stitches.'
  'GIANT!?'
  'Ok, it's not that big I suppose. It's only 5mm, but it still needs stitches.'
  '5MM OH MY GOD.'
  At which point I buried my head in the pillow and thought about coffee. FFS.
• It itches. FFS.
• I have to go back in 10 days and have the stitches taken out. FFS.
• If it's anything like having my C-Sec stitches taken out (I'm sure it won't be... right?) I want a full general anaesthetic. FFS.
• I am being a total girl about this, especially in the light of people having mastectomies and having loads more stitches... FFS.
• I'm quietly terrified it's cancerous. FFS.
• Before I went to the Dr yesterday I went for a 2.5km run to clear my head. NO FFS.
• It was awesome. My shins ached for less than 5 mins and then I was flying again. NO FFS.
• I looked super cool stopping in at the shops, buying milk for Mr S and then delivering it to him on foot, running through the fog holding 2L of milk. It was very very cold. FFS.
• I need running gloves. Suggestions? 

So, despite my shins, despite the hole in my back, I will be running 8km on Sunday with my BRFAARBF, and my two gorgeous girls and Mr S waiting at the finish line. Then I will hug them and be so grateful that despite my whining and runjuries, I get to run. That's the amazing part. I. Get. To. Run.

Please give what you can and tell your friends.

Here's my official blurb....
I am participating in the Mother's Day Classic and raising funds for breast cancer research. Every extra dollar I raise through fundraising goes towards vital research into the prevention and cure of breast cancer. Along with thousands of Australians nationwide, I will be making a difference on Mother's Day and taking steps to save lives by helping fund breast cancer research. It is through research that we will find a cure. Help out, every dollar can help. Cancer sucks. 

I'd love to see that my children will only know of cancer the way that my generation knows of polio, rubella, smallpox and measles. You can also think of me sweating and swearing it out around the course whilst you're tucked up in your nice warm beds... unless you're there shouting at me to KEEP ON RUNNING WITH YOUR ROBOT LEGS and enticing me with ice cream at the finish line.