It has been 9 months since my last post. When I looked back to see what I wrote about it was my cancer. Now it has been almost 26 years since I was diagnosed. I don't feel I should be that old. :) I decided to write today about Camp Hope. I always get emotional this time a year because the post on Facebook about Camp Hope. It is so hard for me to not be there. This year seems a lot harder then any other year.
I was talking with a friend today and we were discussing plans for the next 3 weeks. Camp Hope came up in the discussion. I told her I really wanted to go for a visit this year because it was going to be the last Camp Hope. The American Cancer Society is going to stop funding cancer camps. My only wish is that Camp Hope would no longer be need because there would no longer be cancer. Well the ACS has decided to put more money to finding a cure for cancer and for that I will stand behind them and support them. I literally had to hold back tears. I knew that Camp Hope meant a lot to me but it really hit me today. I have met some amazing people through camp. Some of my closest friends I met at Camp Hope including my husband. I'm sure that every husband and wife connects in ways but it is something truly special that Mike and I have together. We are both easy going about life. I think it is because we have lived and seen the hardships of what a horrible awful thing called cancer can do. We know there are worse things then broken windows from a storm on your house, a flooded basement. (These are things that the Brown's have had to deal with in the last 9 months.) Off subject a little bit. Our basement flooded last September due to sump pump failure. And a month and a half ago a bad storm came through and golf ball sized hail broke 12 plus windows. Mike and I just looked at each other and said there are worst things that can happen and started clean mode.
I started going to camp when I was 8 years old and went every year until I was 21 years old. I took that year off to go too Las Vegas. The next June I was pregnant and had to take a couple of years off. I went back for a couple more years. But the more kids I had I didn't want to leave them with grandparents to run to all their summer activities. One down fall of meeting your sole mate at camp where you both go every summer is he can't stay home to watch the kids so you can go. Well ok he can stay home but I would never ask him to do that. Camp means as much to him as it does me.
It is a place where as a kid you see other kids with scars from surgeries from where cancer had to be removed, kids have hickman's, kids with no hair. And non of the kids are made fun of or have to worried about explaining it to anyone who asks "what happened" "what is that in your chest" (Meaning Hickman) because we all have went through the same thing and understand.
I believe God has a plan for everything. I would cry and ask my mom "Why do I have to have cancer?" I missed out on so much of what my friends where doing do to chemo or a weak immune system. My mom would cry and said "I don't know, if I could take it all away I would." It was not until I married Mike Brown from Camp Hope that I realized God's plan for me to have cancer was so I would go to camp hope and meet amazing people and my husband. We now have 3 girls and 1 boy.
I am thankful for all of the volunteer who take vacation time to help out at camp. Without these amazing people camp would not be what it is today. I hope to come and visit this year. Really what I want is someone else to take over funding for Camp Hope and keep it going. Thanks for the wonderful memories!
