Griffstrong

IT PASSED THE HOUSE! YES IT DID! IT PASSED THE HOUSE!
The Give Kids a Chance Act ensures that kids with cancer will have studies of combinations of new cancer drugs. This is important because finding new combinations of cancer drugs is the best way to find new cures for kids.

The Give Kids a Chance Act includes the Creating Hope Reauthorization Act, reauthorizing the priority review voucher program, an incentive program that has resulted in over 60 new drugs for seriously ill kids. Vouchers sell for about $100 million.

The Innovations in Pediatric Drugs Act is also in the Give Kids a Chance Act, increasing funding for pediatric studies at the National Institutes of Health and imposing monetary penalties when companies fail to complete their required pediatric drug studies.

MMMM..... Could it have been because there were 100 kids spending Friday in the halls of Congress talking to Legislators on Climb the Hill Day?

We have more steps to go: passage of the Give Kids a Chance Act in the Senate and then signature by the President. But we have reached a critical milestone. Let’s get back to work. Let’s give kids with cancer hope. Let’s give kids with cancer a chance.

It’s NOT RARE OR, FAIR!!! I hate cancer!!!!! Took the words right out of my mouth💔😭💔😭

Grief.

I’m trapped, staring at it. It’s hideous, monstrous—so ugly I can barely contain my scream. It follows me everywhere, lurking in every shadow, every quiet moment. I am not safe anywhere. No place, no thought, no breath is free from its presence. Every second it waits, creeping closer, until it wraps its claws around my throat, squeezing the air from my lungs, digging its nails deep into my stomach. I gasp—I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I am undone, shattered into pieces I no longer recognize.

I collapse, knees bruised, body aching, tears burning my cheeks, while the wails I long to release stay trapped inside, strangled by the grief that silences me. It consumes me. It steals the joy from every memory, turning even moments of peace into aching reminders of what I’ve lost.

I grapple with it—this monster that has taken root in me. I wrestle with the emptiness, the hollow ache that never fades. I try to pull myself back together, twisting, yanking, forcing my broken pieces into some kind of shape. But they don’t fit like they used to. I’m not whole anymore.

I tie the shattered parts of me as tightly as I can, hoping they’ll hold just long enough to make it through the day. I paste on a smile, pretending I’m okay, and for a while, I almost believe it. But it’s all a lie—a fragile mask that crumbles the moment I’m alone. And when it does, the weight of that grief crashes down on me again, relentless and unforgiving.

I collapse under its weight, over and over again. I can’t escape it. I’m exhausted from fighting it, from trying to outrun the pain, the memories, the loss. It’s always there, waiting in the quiet, in the spaces between breaths, in the moments I think I might be okay.

But I’m not. I don’t know if I ever will be.

Grief has become a part of me—a shadow I can’t shake, a scar that will never fully heal. And yet, somehow, I keep getting up. Because I have to. Because even in this unbearable sorrow, there’s something inside me that refuses to give up, even when I feel like I have nothing left to hold onto. I can't give up because Peyton didn't. Because he never even got the chance.

So for now, I’m just here, staring at it—grief, this wretched thing that follows me, claws and all. Knowing I will continue to fight it forever.

You ever gotten home at 11pm after a full day of childhood chemo only to spike a fever at midnight? Get back in the car for the 2hr drive to hospital knowing you might get a bed for your child after the sun rises with the fear the fever might rise so fast on the way down it could be ICU or worse?