Kyra's Surgery

Hi Baby....So sissy has been having problems with her tonsils and Adenoids just like you did and she had to have surgery to have them removed. We took her to Danville and Had your favorite ENT Dr.Helwig and then stayed the night on childrens 3 with some of our favorite nurses(Tom and Joe had the first shift with us and I know you were smiling for that) It was very hard for Daddy to goto the hospital for sissy's apt with dr helwig and it was VERY HARD for mommy, sissy and nana to be there without you.Was very hard staying overnight in YOUR Hospital but also kinda felt like going home too, I have missed all the friends that we made along our journey, the nurses and docs that became such a big part of our family. Mommy did ok being there till a few things happened in a row....1st things was Pet therapy and you know Kyra loves those dog visits as much as you did...2nd was Kyra wanted to goto the playroom and sitting there at the table watching her was like looking in a mirror at you and my heart hurt so bad for both of you...3rd was having to hold kyra down to get an IV taken out, omg it was horrible and once she fell asleep mommy kinda cracked up and couldnt stop crying till i called a friend who talked me though it....It was very hard being where my oldest daughter took her last breathe with my younger daughter being sick....BUT I requested we be on CH3 and at Geisinger because I knew the docs and nurses there would take care of Kyra better then any docs or nurses anywhere else because to them she is FAMILY....she is the baby they remember toddling down the hallways after you and your IV Pole,the baby that grew up there right in front of them and None of them could believe how big she got or how much she reminded them of you(she even woke up at 1am when Misty did her vitals and then was dancing in the hallway when she wanted to goto the kitchen for chocolate milk,it was like DEJAVU)......Sissy is still recovering and feeling icky from her surgery but we are hoping she feels better in a few days.She couldn't wait to leave the hospital and go home to be with Geena(who she takes care of very well because she was BOTH of yours) So now we are home and she is snuggled with Your Puppy(Geena)and watching movies on the kindle till she starts to feel better and let me tell ya she is a bad patient lol she hates taking oral meds(like you did)even though I tell her its gonna make her throat better she cries and cries but eventually does it even if I had to bribe her with something she wants to get her to do it(with you it was shoes as a bribe,with Kyra its dolls or stuffed cats) and even though I know bribing isn't the best way to handle the meltdowns I also know its the only way I can keep my sanity......well baby watch over sissy for me and help her feel better and ill talk to you soon xoxoxo Love Always...Mommy

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Halloween Starts off the Painfull holidays

Hi Baby...so we just had our 2nd Halloween without you and it just isn't the same no matter how hard I try to make it that way.....This is the 2nd year your sister has said to me...Mommy what do you think Audri would have wanted to be for Halloween and we played the game of what you would have been and we settled on Elsa because you always had to be the Queen!!!!! Sissy was a Tigress because she loves cats so much and has always been our Kitty(some days she is good kitty and other days she is bad kitty) and of course Rhianna was with us and she was a Girl Cheeta.....

Nana and Poppa John went with us and Nana was a Flower Child and Poppa John put crazy pink coloring in his beard(your favorite color)....we all miss you so much but we go on everyday for Kyra and try to keep each other sane....the rest of this year is hard for mommy because you loved the big dinner at Thanksgiving and Of course you and sissy loved Christmas together and I just cant believe its been 21 months since your gone....I remember when you first got sick and you were going in for transplant in 2009 and we were going to be in the hospital for Christmas so we combined thanksgiving and Christmas and we had THANKSMAS and Santa came to the house and delievered yours and kyras gifts lol you were both so excited and waiting by the door but the minute santa said HoHoHo you both screamed and ran and hid...that is one of the best holiday memories I have of you....kyra was 1 1/2 and you were 3 1/2 and I remember thinking we were doing this because you might not come home from transplant....BUT you did and you got 4more yrs after that for us to be thankfull for and I know I should be thankfull I got all that time with you and I am BUT im also Mad that ill never get more time with you. This is the last picture I have of you and kyra together on Halloween, you were both so tiny and got I miss you baby...sissy was the duck from wonderpets and you were foofa

Darkness

There hasn't been much light since you left us baby,everyday I fight the darkness that threatens to swallow me whole and some days are just so damn much harder then others.It's the beginning of October and your sister is talking about what she wants to be for Halloween and I should be getting the flyers done and the boxes setup for the toy drive and yet all I want to do is lay in bed with the covers over my head and forget its happening.This world is just so damn sad and lonely without your infectious laugh and smile...I ache everyday because I cant feel your tiny little arms around me anymore and its getting harder and harder to keep the sound of your voice fresh in my head.I know I should be stronger then this,that I should be up and moving all the time and getting things done...I feel like im looking at myself from a distance and the shell of me that I see is so horribly sad,lonely and has no life left in her but I don't know how to fix that shell I have become.Talking doesn't seem to help, holding it in doesn't seem to help, yelling and screaming doesn't help, being angry doesn't help...And some days I just think everyone would be better off if that shell of me just went away.................I cant believe that this is going to be the 2nd Halloween without you already, that its been that long since your last Halloween, hell the only Halloween you actually were well enough to go out and get your own candy and you didn't have to reverse trick or treat as you called it and walk around the hospital giving all your candy to the nurses because you were to sick to eat it.I remember how cute you were telling your nurses they had to do a trick so you would give them a treat and that we were the one room they all wanted to go into because of your chocolate stash(and because you were just so stinking cute they couldn't resist you). I MISS YOUR FACE BABY....that's something Kyra started saying to me when I went away to Mississippi for the Rumble,she would call me and tell me she missed my face and god do I understand that because I miss your face every second of everyday.....A lot of ppl I know have lost there lives to suicide and I used to judge them and say how selfish are they look what they did to the people they left behind BUT now I understand it...they aren't cowards they don't take the easy way out and its not something they can stop...its the disease that eats at them everyday, the depression, the darkness that envelops them till they cant breathe, until finally it wins. Everyday since you left I fight that darkness and some days are so much worse then oters...I try so hard baby to smile and be happy for Kyra and go on with life with a smile so I don't end in a mental institution or worse leave your sister alone BUT somedays I just want to lay there with the covers over my head and pretend that I can still hear your voice, feel the touch of your little hand as you snuggle against me and just cry it out....I have been in a funk the last month that I am just having such a hard time pulling myself out of,i have shut out all my friends and family because I don't want to dump anymore of my crap on them so instead I internalize it all and just fester in my grief.....I was asked recently how do I survive the depression...my answer is I don't but I fake it really well...most people just see me as a bitch but what they don't see is that im hurting so much I don't know how to deal and if I come off as a bitch its just me trying to survive another day of darkness.....today is a dark day BUT I got out of bed,took a shower and was gonna take Kyra to homecoming until she said she didn't want to go and ya know what I didn't force her to go because I really didn't have it in me to fight her and deal with people once we were there..i just didn't have it in me to smile today baby...so instead I let her play with her friend, I sat to write to you and now im gonna go pull the covers back over my head until tomorrow...sigh..I love You More the Same Audri

May Used to be a Month Filled with Joy

Hi Baby....So its May again, this used to be my favorite month because it was the Month god gave you to me....Now I sit here and cry because in 5 days you would have turned 8 and its going to be our 2nd birthday without you....Does this sound selfish maybe but I hate the month of May now because your not here to celebrate your birthday with us and we don't get to watch you grow...I never get to help you pick our your prom dress or your wedding dress...I never get to talk to you about your boyfriends and kissing boys which by the way your smartie pants sister says she should be allowed to do once she is a teenager and I have told her she may not kiss a boy till she is married and she cannot be married till she is at least 40!!!!!!!!! I hate that you will never be here to wish me another Happy Mothers Day which is ALSO in the month of May...you were born 4 days before mothers day 2006 and you were my special mothers day present....even though I have your beautiful sister who I love with all my heart and I know she will be here for Mothers day and I get to hear her say she loves me and hug me and I am so thankfull for that, it doesn't mean that Mothers Day doesn't rip my heart out because I can NEVER hear you say those words to me again.....Some days are just so much harder then others and no matter how I try to smile through them I just cant baby im sorry im trying so damn hard...I had a meltdown the other day over a damn box of trix because they were your favorite and when I poured them for Kyra all I could remember was your last few days in the hospital before you died, all you ate was trix...5 pieces per spoon, no more no less or we would get yelled at!!!!! After I took your sister to school I went home and cried for the rest of the day over those damn Trix......Today was horrible I went to pick up your Christening Gown from the Cleaners because I Promised Gwen she could use it for her baby(ONLY Because I knew this was something You would want me to do or id never let it out of the damn house because its a piece of you that im so afraid of losing) and when I left the drycleaners I couldn't stop crying like a crazy person...I drove to The Painted Lady's House haha you always called her that, knowing she was prolly busy making someone look fabulous and thankfully Jon was there to talk me off the ledge a bit ...then I called Aunt Dari and cried some more before I came home, collapsed in a heap and cried it out and now im here telling you how horrific days like this are for me...I think im getting through it and yes that's all it is...Getting through, not living not dying, just getting though because honestly I already feel dead sometimes, like I walk around in this fog that is now my life and occasionally it lifts and I have a nice day....sometimes I feel like im going crazy and then I realize no im just grieving and we all do it differently......I fill my days with as much activity as I can so that I cant think...so many that I overlap stuff without realizing it because apparently I need a secretary ugh I signed Kyra up to goto a camp called Camp Courage which is for kids who have lost someone close in there lives like a sister, brother, mom,dad whatever and then I realize it might be the same weekend as Gwen's Baby shower but im not sure and ill find out on Monday sigh and this weekend I signed up to do a suicide prevention walk with Aunt Karen at the same time im supposed to be in Wilkes-Barre at Michell's Baby Shower , all because when I sit and im inactive I lose my mind...the voice in my head drive me nuts if I slow down enough to listen to them...the what if's...what I had done this different or what if I had done that, all the days of your treatments all the fears all the decisions I had to make alone(because your dad was no help) all those things go round and round in my head till I feel like a walking basket case...but im smiling on the outside so nobody knows that im dying on the inside....My *Friends* have mostly all just gone away and stopped talking to me because none of them can *handle my pain* because they have moved on with there lives and I cant(or at least that's who I see it)....I wonder every day how im not a drunk or druggie taking something to numb my mind and ease the pain would be the easy way out I guess and believe me sometimes I want to take that easy way but then I say you cant do that You Have Kyra and she has to get up for school in the morning what the hell good are you to her if your strung out...and I take that to an extreme to like I wont even have a glass of Wine on a night I know she has school the next day because im such a bad drinker I know it will gimme a headache that will make me not want to deal with my 6yr old and that's not fair to her....so instead I sit here and write down all my crazy stuff to you and get it out so I don't let I eat me alive anymore then it already is.....I love you baby but I have to go get sissy from school so ill talk to you soon xoxoxoxo

Loss and how it affects people

I know its been a while since I wrote to you on here but I have been trying not to live so much inside my head because I felt like I was going crazy.*Normal People* as I now refer to everyone who hasn't suffered the devastating loss of a child, just do not understand exactly how crazy you feel and how often you think of dying after watching your child die in your arms. Everyone deals with death differently and some people are just stronger then others, I have thought about dying and joining you so many times since the last time I held you in my arms, but then I look at your sister and I think she needs me how could I ever do that and what would that do to her psyche, how could she live with that for the rest of her life and then I cry myself to sleep and wake up the next day look at her smiling face and put on my brave face and go on FOR HER. But just because I can do that doesn't mean everyone can, the childhood cancer community is NEVER one that any parent would choose to become a part of, we are all thrown into it and then we put on our brave faces and we deal with it because our babies need us...BUT some of us just aren't strong enough to live with that and some of us give into the voices in our heads and decide to join our babies again no matter who we leave behind or how it will affect them...I do not judge the ones who cant be strong and who choose to join there children again on the other side but I do feel so much pain for the loved ones, the children, the wives, the husbands,the mothers, the faters,the brothers and sister who are left to ask Why, why couldn't they go on....its the same Why we all ask when our babies get cancer, why our families,why our kids, just fucking why.......and then there are the what if's, what if I had done something different, what if I had been there for them more, what if I had called someone....but the what if's can make you crazy and that goes back to the voices in our heads the ones that if we listen to we give in and join all the others before us that have given into the darkness.....So for all my friends and family out there suffering with loss and pain please fight the voice in your head so that you don't leave the people you love behind wondering why and what could I have done to save them....reach out to someone anyone and let them help you, or turn to a blog like this and write down your thoughts because that's what has helped me...even if nobody else ever reads these words at least I know they are here and im telling the voices in my head to goto hell that im stonger then they are and I will survive for my other child and I will go on till one day my beautiful Audrianna and I will meet again on the other side where I know she will be waiting for me with a smile on her face and an I love you mommy on her lips.