Camp Debbie Lou

So we were contacted a few weeks ago by our Child Life group at our Hemby hospital and told they picked us to be the ones to go to the Debbie Lou family camp this year!  It is a 4 day camp put on by a private family in honor of their sister who passed away from cancer several years ago.  They have 7 families hand picked from NC and SC and we were one of them!  They only do it for 2 weeks a year so pretty cool to be asked. 

They had horse riding (I couldn't do it because of my "condition" :( ) go carts (that either :( ), archery, swimming, fishing, paddle boating, crafts and all meals taken care of!  So well put on and so 1950's feel with the family camp. 

The other families were all so sweet and loving.  One family had a boy with the type of brain tumor we were hoping Elan had. He looks so great!  He actually went to Indiana just a month after us and the mother is expecting too!  She is 31 weeks so neat to have someone on our same path.  They live up in the mountains about 2 hrs away from us.  It was hard to be around other kids with cancer, even though all looked so great and had so much fun.  Just so sad to see cancer affect so many kids, even though just 6 families.  It just brought it all back up.

they had one councilor per person - so more volunteers than campers.  Elan had 2 helping him out.  Needless to say I actually was able to take a nap most days!

It was just so full of love!  They even put on a beautiful "date night" for the parents while the kids had a pool party.  They obviously get what it really is like to have a family member with cancer.  It is so all consuming and you get such little time as a couple.  We are so fortunate to have my parents here, but even so the day to day normal life and then the day to day cancer care life just takes up so much energy and time.  The family said they have had couples come through that hadn't been out alone in over 2 years, not even the grocery store, I so believe that!  Just nice for them to do this for everyone!

The nephew of the family actually adopted a little girl that has/had cancer and they live in Charlotte.  Guess what?  They go to our same oncologist, Dr. Bell!  the little girl was adopted from China and had already gone through treatments and is in remission (cancer free).  Pretty neat and small world!
So here are some fun pictures!

family art project

at the playground

Finn with his super buddy Titus.

Elan's eye.  All puffy from all the gluten and dairy the  day before...

So the night before we left my poor mother went into the hospital as her appendex had burst!  She had to have emergancy surgery and it was pretty serious.  Thankfully she wasn't too toxic yet.  She is still recovering but doing well now.  I won't post her photo of the day she went in (I do have some kindness to me :)).  Below is our lovely friend that took our meal orders the entire time we were in the hospital with Elan!  We bumped into her at the cafeteria while waiting for mom's surgery (it was almost 3 hrs!).  Her little boy Noah is in and out of the hospital with Sickle Cell Anemia.  She has such a positive way about her, I just know he is in the best care!

Add caption