*This post is sponsored – but the thoughts and feelings are our own, and we only work with businesses we believe to be reputable and resourceful to our readers.
After working in medicine for many years, I learned to emotionally disconnect. I had to. When you see someone suffering from an illness or accident, you do your job to take care of them and then move on. You can’t take home with you what you see everyday at work. I felt like I had mastered this – until I became a mom…
Then at work, every suffering child could have been my child. And every tearful mother could have been me. I could relate and feel their pain in a way that I never did before.
A similar thing happened at a St. Jude fundraiser my first year as a mom. I was on the SF St. Jude Annual Gala committee for a couple years before our first son was born, but now attending the Annual Gala as a mother became a completely different experience. Just like at work, I began to ask myself, “What if my child was diagnosed with cancer?” “What if that was my family?” “Why am I worrying about teething/ tantrums/ schools when there are families who are really suffering?”
As I sat back in my chair, I realized that St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital connected with me now on a deeper level. No mother or father should have to go through that pain. No child should have to miss out on life’s adventures, yet it happens everyday. The National Cancer Institute states, “In the United States in 2016, an estimated 10,380 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed among children from birth to 14 years, and about 1,250 children are expected to die from the disease.”
Can you imagine? I can’t.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital gives these families hope. They accept them with open arms into their St. Jude family and allow them to focus only on their child’s fight with cancer. There are no bills at St. Jude, not for medical treatment, not for travel, not for food, not for anything.
They pay nothing.
For more than 50 years, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has been caring for families and saving children’s lives with its renowned medical care. They have increased the childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to 80% and continue to do research everyday to increase it even further.
Next Friday, October 14th, The Bay Area unites to fight childhood cancer at “Miracles on the Bay,” St. Jude’s 8th Annual Gala, and you are invited. It is a beautiful evening with live music, dinner, dancing as well as live and silent auctions.
Purchase tickets or make your own personal donation here.
To learn more about St. Jude visit stjude.org or follow them on Facebook and Twitter (@stjude).
You too can help a family in need. You too can help save a child. Hug your little ones a little tighter tonight, and after everyone is quietly sleeping in their beds (at last) see if you can find it in your heart to make a difference: your time, a donation, or just a small prayer. There is a mother out there who will be getting her child’s cancer diagnosis tomorrow.
Can you imagine? I can’t.
*Photos courtesy of Kerstin Dittmar, Miracles on the Bay Chairperson
