“Help Us Find A Cure”……. November 9, 2012
Posted by Waking Up With A Broken Heart in Love & Grief, Uncategorized.trackback
“To truly understand the depth of the plea “Help Us Find A Cure” your life must be touched by someone who has a disease for which there is no cure. Only then will you feel the anguish and desperation behind each syllable. Please Help Us Find A Cure for Childhood Cancer so no other parent of a child with this devastating disease will feel this pain.”
Silvia Vanni, Sal’s mommy forever
Please Help Us Find A Cure……
Every day people tell me they understand and they know how I feel. That my baby is in a better place and that I should be happy he is no longer in pain, That “there is a reason for everything”, etc, etc………….
Unless you have watched your child suffer the unimaginable, heard him screaming in pain, seen him being humiliated time and time again, listened to his cries for help, or found yourself begging God for mercy………………YOU HAVE NO IDEA…….
I write this blog because it is an outlet for me. Because it lets me express the sheer torture I have to live thru each and every day. Because some people want to know what it’s like for some reason………. Because it helps me to cope……….. Because I love you all and want you to know that although I am dieing inside, I am still alive………………
To some Sal “passed away” 21 months ago. To me it was 2 seconds ago………….I long to hold him, to kiss him, to touch him, to rub his soft beautiful head………….. The pain is as much physical as it is emotional.
How do I describe the depth of my pain?? It is pure inexplicable torture. To have to live the rest of my life without my baby is just unimaginable to me. I wake up and he’s not there, I go to bed and he’s not there…… How could that possibly be??? How could God have taken away my most precious possession? How??????? Why?????
I believe in signs, I always have. I get many signs from my baby. You have to truly believe to see them and accept them. I long for them, I LIVE for them now.
The Holidays are here. Do you realize how difficult this time is for someone who has lost a child? Halloween…..Sal’s favorite time of the year……………….it came and went…..without him. (how could that happen????) I know he would have been Captain America this year. Did I walk thru the Halloween section of any store?……..NO. Did I go to Party City like I have every year for the last 20 something years of my life????………….NO
Did I buy candy for the kids that came to my door……Yes, …but none of Sal’s favorites. Did I personally answer the door and see all the smiling happy faces????……NO……… Did I buy my kids face paint and whatever else they needed to enjoy this night?………….Yes, but nothing Sal would have wanted to use.
Thanksgiving is next…………………….
Sal & I spent Thanksgiving 2007 at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NYC. He had just undergone a 12 hour surgery to remove the massive tumor in his body after 5 grueling, painful & torturous cycles of chemotherapy. His incision had barely healed by Thanksgiving……spanning from the middle of his back across to the front of his body and down to his groin. Can you imagine??? He was only 4 years old and his body had been split in half to remove a lethal foreign body that would eventually take his life.
Thanksgiving 2008 we highly celebrated with 40 family members his very short lived NED status (No Evidence of Disease). 2009 he was neutropenic, (extremely low & fragile immune system) but thankfully home for a few days, we celebrated with only our immediate family, just my husband, myself, my sister, and our 4 other kids. I made every single thing he wanted. He ate and drank to his hearts content…..then we shopped online for EVERYTHING he wanted…………. 2010, Home, happy & off/on pain………………..none of us knew this would be his final Thanksgiving. How could we have known? How could we have understood that? How could we have possibly accepted that?
2011……………..no turkey, no celebrations, no thanking God for all the gifts he has given us……just anguish & tears, tears, and more tears………. 2012???????
Not many can relate. Very few can understand. The death of a child by cancer is a life sentence to the parents of anguish and agony.
A sentence which I wish upon no one……………..
Our very last Thanksgiving together……….
I miss you Papo……..
Waking Up With A Broken Heart 
Dear Silvia, I don’t even know what to say… except that I’m SO sorry for the loss of your beloved Sal. My heart is aching for you, having just read your blog on this page,detailing the last years of his short life. I just had to say something to you.Maybe to ease my pain for you and your Family. I lost my Mom to breast cancer at the tender age of 54. I honestly thought the sun would not come up the next day.She passed away Sept.11.1994, which has a whole new meaning for the world but,was already the worst day of my life. She was only 54 and not a child,but her cancer was incurable. And it seems like just yesterday. I was 34 when she died at home with me and my Kids,but I could’ve been 64 and NOT ready to lose my mama. I have 3 children of my own and 4 step-children as well as 15 healthy grand babies that I simply adore. I couldn’t imagine what you are going thru,but She did. You see, my oldest brother Mark committed suicide when he was 28 y/o. and she never got over it. And I destinctly (sic) remember her telling me she NEVER wanted me to know how she felt inside having lost her first born child. I found her journal while packing up her things and discovered she was grieving him like it had happened the day before. I’m telling you this for God knows why,but, you and you alone knows how it feels and I’m praying for God to ease your pain,that will never go away, but maybe will turn into remembering the goodtimes with a little less anguish. Ipray for your whole family and that God keeps the rest of your Children healthy and safe. I’m terribly sorry that your precious Sal was taken from you at all. Ihope you can find a little joy in your life very soon. Sincerely, Tracy Comito (in Ocala,Fla.)
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Thank you for writing Tracy. I am so very sorry about your mom & your brother.
It’s so true that time continues to go on for others but for us mothers who lose a child it stops forever. Next week it will be two years that Sal is gone, but, for me the pain is as unbearable as the moment he took his last breathe.
Love to you……
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