At the age of six, our daughter, Sarah, was diagnosed with Stage IV Neuroblastoma. For the first few months of her treatment, we updated friends and family by sending out emails and then, in early 2003, started an official blog for her.
The earliest e-mails and updates are compiled here
Her main cancer blog is here.
As time passed and Sarah (thankfully) recovered, the cancer blog morphed into more of a family blog. However, in 2008, I decided to change things around a little bit and started Smithellaneous to record family news and just wrote on Sarah’s blog the news pertaining to her. In more recent months, I stopped updating her old site altogether and moved all the Smith family news to Smithellaneous.
Having said that though, going back through the older journal entries of her cancer blogs will uncover many hundreds of stories displaying equal measures of strength, tears, and joy. People have told me that some of my strongest writing was done during those cancer days and I suppose that’s true–deep suffering has a way of bringing things to the surface that don’t come out any other way.
One thing I do want to make clear: Sarah’s blogs are not made up of just heartbreak, tears and sad stories. Sarah is a funny gal and there are many posts that will make you grin from ear to ear if not laugh right out loud.
So when you have a bit of extra time, read through some of those old stories and give yourself a chance to meet this cancer fighting girl of ours who will always be our hero.