Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Another day at home, Hannah was down for most of the day. Here is a picture I took of her this morning, look at her baby Tod up there protecting her!!



She had a stomach ache, headache and sore throat the entire day. She pepped up a bit, you can see her here in the box I was wrapping to set out for our Toy Drive! I knew she wasn't feeling well when she didn't want to wrap it herself, she laid on the couch and watched me. She did start feeling a bit better by late afternoon, finally ate a bit and did some homework. We're going to try school tomorrow and see how she makes out. There are quite a few kids in school sick right now with a similar virus.

Thanks to all of you for the great response to our Toy Drive. I received many emails offering assistance, that's wonderful. I'm still hoping to have more information to report tomorrow, and will pass it on as soon as I do.

♥Kim


Toy Drive
This year the girls want to do two things to help kids with cancer from Hannah's Cans for Cancer program. First, we are adopting an oncology family this year from clinic. We do know the patient with cancer is a pre-teen girl, but we are awaiting the rest of the details on the family to be able to purchase gifts for them. We are so excited about this, and hope to make Christmas very special for a family struggling with cancer who may need some extra help this year.

The other thing the girls want to do is visit the 4th floor pediatric oncology floor at Schneider Children's hospital, where Hannah spent her time when inpatient. The plan is that Dave will dress up as Santa, I will be Mrs. Clause, and they will both be elves. Yes, you can all stop laughing now, it should be quite amusing. We will have boy and girl gifts for all ages and will travel room to room handing out gifts and candy to all the kids. We plan on leaving toys for the bone and stem cell unit children also, but we can't enter that area, as it is strictly quarantined.

We had to get special permission from the hospital to be able to go up on the 4th floor. Usually, they do not allow donors to directly give the gifts, due to hospital and state regulations. Also, no child under 12 years old is typically allowed on the floor if they are not a patient or a sibling (I never knew this.) Since both of the girls are under age 12, they will not be allowed to actually enter the rooms, but the children can come out to the hall or the doorway. If that isn't possible, their parent or a Childlife helper can deliver the gifts.

We are very excited! There is a lot of work to do though. As you're probably thinking...these are very ambitious projects. I'm thinking the same thing..but I know we'll pull it off. The thought of bringing these kids a little bit of happiness at Christmas will keep us on track and rolling! We are in need of toys, lots of toys and FAST! We will be delivering these toys to the hospital and the family sometime during the week before Christmas, which doesn't leave us a lot of time. We need boy and girl toys, of all ages, but mostly in the age range 6 years old and above. There are kids of all ages on the oncology floor, but not that many very young children. The children were most often around Hannah's age or older. If you are out and about shopping for Christmas, please help us help these kids, many of whom will be in the hospital on Christmas, instead of at home with their family, as they should be. It's difficult to be in the hospital, and especially difficult to be in the hospital on a holiday.

Please consider donating to Hannah's Cans for Cancer Toy Drive this year. If you do not have time to purchase a gift, and could drop off or send a donation instead, that would be appreciated also and will go directly to purchasing gifts for the children. Hannah designed a sign for the bin that is now out in our driveway. Please drop off any unwrapped gifts to our Toy Drive box at our home, 1556 Grand Ave, Mattituck. If you would like us to come pick up at your house, we would be happy to, just send me an email or call (information on the side bar on the left of this page.)