Here we are again.

Every CHaD parent has a story.
Often, a heart-wrenching, tear-jerking story that lead them to becoming a CHaD parent.
And every CHaD kid has a story, some of them too young to remember when it began.

April 2011 - 7 months old

Unfortunately, our story is not much different than many of the ones belonging to the children and families walking the halls of The Children's Hospital at Dartmouth today. If you haven't read it before, I suggest jumping back a few years and checking out this post. I remember writing that post as one of the first times in Cam's three years of life that I had publicly shared Cameron's struggle with epilepsy. At the time, we didn't know a lot, and life went on its merry way, with med dosage increases here and there, finger pricks to check levels every once in a while and our every-3-month visit to Pediatric Neurology always planned out on our calendars. When I wrote that post, we were just starting the months of testing leading up to his surgery in October 2013.

October 30, 2013 - Temporal lobectomy

As we enter, what feels like, new-old territory, with Cameron having two uncontrolled, non-responsive (to his rescue medications) seizures within two months of each other in January and March, we're beginning again to talk with Dr. Richard Morse about what we can do going forward. With our recent overnight stay at CHaD, and the struggles that 2016 has brought, it fueled our fire going into this year's CHaD HERO. I've shared before that, while this is our sixth year as CHaD parents, I was never out of the water enough to pay attention to the incredible things happening around us at CHaD. I didn't realize we were part of a community of loving families, surrounded by the incredible care provided by the most wonderful, caring clinicians. Luckily, I do now and MAN, am I thankful!

March 23, 2016 - Our most recent CHaD stay

This year's CHaD HERO has kicked off, and we couldn't be more excited to make this a family-affair! Last year I ran the Baystate Marathon the day of the CHaD HERO, so we were unable to attend the events of the day, though it was on our minds. While I was thrilled to have been able to raise money as a virtual participant, I knew I didn't want to miss out on the day again.

Shawn will be joining 49 other cyclists to venture on a half-century (50 mile) bike ride.
Cameron is registered to kick-butt on Cam's Course Fun Run (we can pretend it was named after him :-P )
And I will be running the 5K, all on October 16th!

We hope you will join us for some fundraising events over the summer and I'll continue to share updates and information here. We're upping the ante this year and shooting for $1,500 as our goal! Thank you to all of you who donated and helped me reach my $1,000 goal last year.

Don't worry about a thing, cause every little thing is gonna be alright.