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Brave Like Brynlee, Manchester, MI (2026)

09/10/2026

Childhood Cancer Awareness Day 10 💛

One of the cruelest things childhood cancer ever taught me is that sometimes loving your child means helping them through something they are begging you to make stop.

I still struggle with that.

Because from the moment Brynlee was born, I was supposed to be her safe place. When she was scared, she came to me. When she hurt, I made it better. When something felt too big for her, I could pick her up and carry her away from it.

Then cancer came, and suddenly there were things I could not carry her away from.

There were moments when Brynlee would look at me with tears in her eyes and tell me she didn’t want to do something, and every part of me wanted to say, “Okay. You don’t have to. Mommy’s taking you home.”

But I couldn’t.

Instead, I had to look back at her and say words that have broken my heart more times than I could ever count.

“I know you’re scared, baby. But we have to.”

I hate those words.

I hate what they meant. I hate how many times I had to say them. I hate that cancer took the person Brynlee trusted to protect her from scary things and forced me to become the person helping her walk straight toward them.

Nobody prepares a mother for that.

Nobody tells you what it feels like to hold your child while she cries and know that this time you cannot make it stop. Nobody tells you about the guilt that comes with wiping her tears while knowing you are still going to say yes to the procedure, yes to the medicine, yes to whatever comes next, because the alternative is something you cannot even allow yourself to think about.

So you become very good at swallowing your own fear.

You smile when you want to fall apart. You tell her how amazing she is doing when your chest feels like it is caving in. You keep your voice calm because she is studying your face, looking for proof that she is safe, and you know that if Mommy looks scared, then this must really be scary.

And somehow, after all of it, she still reaches for you.

That is the part that will never leave me.

She still reaches for me.

After every time I could not say no. After every time I could not take her home. After every time I had to ask her for just a little more courage when she had already given more than enough, I was still the person she wanted.

There is something incredibly beautiful about that.

And something absolutely heartbreaking.

People tell me all the time how brave Brynlee is, and I will never disagree. I have watched my daughter find courage in moments that brought me to my knees.

But sometimes when I hear the word brave, my heart hurts.

Because people see the strength.

Mothers like me know what came before it.

We know the tears before the brave face. We know the quiet “Mommy, I don’t want to.” We know the bargaining, the fear, the exhaustion and the little hand reaching for ours. We know how many times these children had already been brave before the picture everyone else saw was ever taken.

These children did not ask to become warriors.

Childhood cancer gave them no choice.

And I need people to understand the difference.

I do not want the world to simply admire how much children with cancer can endure. I want the world to be uncomfortable with how much we are asking them to endure in the first place.

I want people to look beyond the gold ribbons and the beautiful pictures of smiling survivors and understand what survival can require from a child.

I want more research because I want better treatments. I want better treatments because I want fewer mothers having to whisper, “I know, baby. But we have to.” I want fewer children learning how to be brave in hospital rooms. I want fewer parents discovering that sometimes the only way to save their child is to stand beside them through the very thing every instinct in their body is begging them to stop.

Because our goal should never simply be to make children strong enough to survive what we have available.

Our goal should be to make what we have available better for children.

That is why I talk about childhood cancer.

That is why I share the parts of our story that still hurt.

That is why I will continue asking people to care even when September ends and the gold ribbons disappear from timelines.

Because I know what “brave” cost my daughter.

I know what it cost all of us.

And while I will spend the rest of my life being unbelievably proud of the strength Brynlee found when she needed it, there will always be a part of my heart that grieves the fact that she ever had to find that strength at all.

I never wanted a warrior.

I just wanted my little girl.

And every child diagnosed with cancer deserves a future where we ask more from science, more from research, more from our government, and more from ourselves..

so we can finally start asking less from them. 💛

09/09/2026

Childhood Cancer Awareness Day 9 🎗️

Nobody tells you how expensive it is to have a child with cancer.

They tell you the diagnosis. They tell you the treatment plan. They tell you about surgery, scans, chemotherapy, radiation, blood counts, side effects and all the terrifying things your child is about to face.

But nobody sits you down and says, “By the way, while you’re trying to keep your child alive, the rest of your life is still going to expect you to function like nothing happened.”

The bills do not stop because your child has cancer. The lights do not stay on out of sympathy. The mortgage does not disappear because you spent the night sleeping in a hospital chair. Groceries still have to be bought. Gas still has to go in the car. Siblings still need everything they needed before the diagnosis. Life keeps sending invoices while your entire world is sitting inside a hospital room.

And then the cancer expenses start piling on top of all of it.

The gas back and forth to appointments. The parking garages. The meals grabbed wherever you can because you have been at the hospital all day. The prescriptions. The supplies. The copays. The deductibles. The unexpected admissions. The appointment that was supposed to take an hour and turns into an entire day. The emergency trip you never planned for. The hundred little expenses that do not feel little anymore when they happen over and over and over again.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, parents are still expected to somehow keep a household running.

Cancer does not care about a work schedule. It does not care that bills are due. It does not care that a parent has already missed too much time. It does not care that a family was doing just fine before diagnosis and is now watching everything they worked for get stretched thinner and thinner.

You do what you have to do because what else are you supposed to do?

You show up.

You sit beside your child.

You make the drive.

You pay the parking.

You grab the food.

You move the bills around.

You figure it out.

You keep going.

And then people see the fundraisers.

They see the donation links, the benefits, the shirts, the raffles, the meal trains, the families asking for help, and I do not think people always understand what they are really looking at.

They are not looking at a family that failed to plan.

They are looking at what happens when childhood cancer crashes into an ordinary life and starts taking from every direction.

Because health insurance does not make a family financially safe.

Insurance can help pay for treatment, but it does not replace lost income. It does not fill the gas tank for the 50th drive to the hospital. It does not pay for every therapy, every prescription, every meal, every parking fee or every expense that comes with trying to keep your child alive while keeping the rest of your family standing.

And that is the part that makes me angry.

A parent should never have to look at their sick child and then look at a stack of bills and wonder how they are supposed to survive both.

A family should not have to be financially destroyed because their child has cancer.

They should not have to depend on how big their community is, how many people share their fundraiser or how much money strangers are willing to give just to stay above water during the worst season of their lives.

But families do.

Every single day.

That is why those fundraisers matter. That is why those meal trains matter. That is why those donations matter. That is why community matters.

Because sometimes what looks like “help” from the outside is actually the thing keeping a family from drowning.

🎗️ FACT OR MYTH: If a child has health insurance, their family is financially protected from childhood cancer.

09/08/2026

Childhood Cancer Awareness Day 8 🎗️

Brynlee is in her second week of kindergarten, and she is doing so good. She is walking into school more confidently, learning her routine, making little memories, and slowly settling into this life that I once could not let myself picture too far ahead. And I think that is what has been sitting so heavy on my heart this week.

There is something incredibly emotional about watching your child do something completely ordinary after watching them survive something completely unfair.

People see a little girl going to kindergarten. I see every hospital room that came before it. I see every time she was put under anesthesia for a scan or procedure. I see every IV, every therapy appointment, every medication, every moment where her childhood had to make room for cancer. I see all of that tucked quietly behind a backpack and a school day that looks so normal from the outside.

And somehow, she still gets to be little.

That part matters to me more than I can explain.

Because childhood cancer does not only steal time in hospitals. It steals pieces of childhood. It changes schedules, routines, friendships, school, confidence, independence, and the way a child learns to trust their own body. It forces children to grow up in ways they never should have had to, and then asks them to step back into a classroom and find their place again.

Brynlee is finding hers.

She is learning. She is growing. She is getting stronger. She is building a life that belongs to her, not to cancer.

And I am so proud of her.

Not because she has to be brave every second. Not because she has to prove anything to anyone. I am proud of her because after everything that interrupted her childhood, she is still here getting to live it.

That is the part I wish more people could really see.

Fact or Myth: Childhood cancers are basically the same diseases as adult cancers, just happening in younger bodies.

09/07/2026

Childhood Cancer Awareness Day 7 💛

HAZARDOUS DRUG.

That is what the bag says.

Not hidden somewhere in tiny print. Not buried in a packet nobody reads. Right there in bold black letters, warning anyone who touches it that special precautions need to be taken because what is inside can be dangerous.

And then they hook it up to your child.

There is something about that reality that I will never be able to make normal. As a parent, you spend your entire life trying to protect your child from things that can hurt them. You lock medicine away, you read warning labels, you panic over fevers, you teach them not to touch dangerous things, and then cancer enters your life and suddenly you are standing beside a hospital bed watching nurses protect themselves while handling a medication that is about to go straight into your baby’s body.

And before anyone ever says, “I would never let them give that to my child,” understand this part too.

Parents do not just get to say no to lifesaving cancer treatment and walk away like it is some simple parenting decision.

When your child has cancer, you are not sitting in a room choosing between a good option and a bad option. You are being told what gives your child the best chance to stay alive. You are hearing about side effects that make you sick to your stomach, long term damage that may not show up for years, risks that no parent should ever have to weigh, and then you are handed consent forms while your entire world is falling apart.

And if you refuse treatment that doctors believe is medically necessary to save your child’s life, that refusal can become a legal and child welfare issue.

So no, cancer parents are not standing there casually deciding whether or not they “feel comfortable” with chemotherapy. We are being backed into an impossible corner where the choice is often a dangerous treatment or a disease that may kill our child.

What exactly are you supposed to choose?

You choose the thing that gives them a chance.

Even when the bag says hazardous.

Even when nurses need gloves to handle it.

Even when you know chemotherapy can destroy healthy cells right along with the cancer cells. Even when you know it can wipe out blood counts, destroy the immune system, cause infections, nausea, pain, exhaustion, hearing loss, nerve damage, organ damage, fertility problems, and effects that can follow a child long after everyone else has celebrated the end of treatment and moved on.

You still say yes.

Because cancer does not leave you with fair choices.

That is the part I need people to sit with.

Brynlee did not choose any of this. She did not choose chemotherapy. She did not choose to have medications with warning labels pumped into her body. She did not choose to have her childhood replaced with infusion rooms, blood counts, side effects, hospital stays, scans, medications and adults talking over her head about how much her little body could take.

She just had to endure it.

And I had to stand there and let it happen because loving her meant doing everything possible to keep her here.

There is a kind of helplessness in that that I do not think ever leaves you. Watching something you know can hurt your child enter their body while also knowing it might be the very thing that saves them changes something inside of you forever.

That is childhood cancer.

It is not just bald heads and bravery shirts and gold ribbons.

It is signing papers you wish you never had to read.

It is listening to side effects that sound terrifying and knowing you may not have another option.

It is watching nurses handle your child’s medicine like a hazardous substance and then watching that same medicine run through your child’s veins.

It is praying that the poison kills the cancer before it takes too much from the child you are fighting so hard to save.

And then people wonder why cancer parents are angry about research funding.

This is why.

Because children deserve better than treatments that can save their lives while damaging the bodies they are supposed to spend the rest of those lives living in.

They deserve treatments created for them.

They deserve safer options.

They deserve more research, more funding, more attention and a hell of a lot more urgency than they are getting.

No parent should ever have to look at a bag that says HAZARDOUS DRUG and feel grateful that it exists because it might keep their child alive.

But that is exactly what childhood cancer asks of us.

💛 FACT OR MYTH: A parent can simply refuse medically necessary cancer treatment for their child and there are no further consequences.

09/06/2026

Childhood Cancer Awareness Day 6. 💛

This is what radiation did to Brynlee.

Not cancer. Radiation.

The treatment that was supposed to save her life left burns across her little body, and somehow I was supposed to look at that and keep telling myself this was the safest option for her.

Because it was.

Brynlee received radiation to both her brain and her spine. There was no cancer in her spine, but because she has Group 3 medulloblastoma, doctors could not take the chance that microscopic cancer cells were hiding somewhere they could not see or that the disease could travel through the fluid around her brain and spinal cord. So they treated her spine anyway. Her healthy spine. Her developing body. All because childhood cancer leaves no room for chances.

For 30 days straight, Brynlee had to be sedated just to get through radiation. Thirty days of placing my child on a radiation table, watching her be put to sleep, kissing her goodbye and then walking out of that room while every single part of me wanted to stay.

Imagine doing that with your child.

Imagine laying them down on that table knowing radiation is about to be sent through their brain and spine. Imagine knowing there was no cancer in part of the area being treated, but also knowing you could not risk leaving it untreated. Imagine being told this is the safest path forward and still watching it burn their skin.

Then imagine waking up the next morning and doing it all over again.

And again.

And again.

Thirty times.

She has now been sedated more than 50 times between radiation, scans and procedures, and I hate that I can even say that number so casually. I hate that anesthesia became normal. I hate that hospitals became normal. I hate that my daughter learned how to be brave in rooms most adults would fall apart in.

People see a child survive cancer and think the story has a happy ending. They see the smile, the school pictures, the birthday coming up, the little girl getting stronger, and they want to believe the worst part is over.

But survival has a cost, and this picture is part of that cost.

I am grateful beyond words that Brynlee had access to treatment that gave her the best chance to live. I am grateful for the doctors who were trying to protect her future. But I am also furious that this is still what “the safest option” can look like for a child.

Those two things can exist at the same time.

I can be thankful my daughter is here and still demand better.

I can love the doctors who saved her and still hate what she had to endure.

I can celebrate every milestone she reaches and still be angry that her childhood was filled with radiation tables, anesthesia, burns, scans and fear.

Children deserve treatments that do not force them to sacrifice so much of their healthy bodies just for the chance to survive. They deserve more research. They deserve more funding. They deserve better than being told this is simply the price they have to pay.

Because when the safest option still does this to a child, we are nowhere near finished.

FACT OR MYTH: A child can receive radiation to an area where no visible cancer is present because doctors are trying to destroy microscopic cells and reduce the chance of the cancer spreading or returning. 💛

09/05/2026

Childhood Cancer Awareness Day 5 💛

Siblings of children with cancer live through a version of this nightmare that is easy to miss. Their names are not on the medical chart, and they are not the ones receiving chemo, going into surgery, or lying in the hospital bed. But they are still there, watching, listening, and learning things children should never have to learn.

Chandler and Kaiser have spent more time on a children’s oncology floor than a child should. They have walked those hallways, sat in those rooms, seen sick children and scared parents, heard alarms, watched nurses come and go, and listened to conversations most kids their age would not understand.

Except they do understand.

They know what cancer can do. They know what a brain tumor is. They know what it means when a scan matters. They know that sometimes children get very sick, and that families do not always get the ending they prayed for.

They have seen things they never should have had to see and learned things they never should have had to know. That changes a child. It changes the way they hear the word cancer, the way they look at hospitals, and the way they understand fear. It also changes the way they look at their little sister, because loving her came with learning far too young that something could happen to her.

So much of what Chandler and Kaiser carried happened quietly. They still had to go to school, play sports, spend time with friends, do homework, celebrate birthdays, argue, have bad days, and experience all the normal things children are supposed to have. But underneath all of that was this enormous thing sitting inside our family.

Their sister had brain cancer.

There were appointments, hospital stays, changed plans, long days, conversations they overheard, questions they probably did not always know how to ask, and moments when they knew something was wrong simply by looking at the adults around them.

I know there were things they held inside. There had to be.

How does a child explain what it feels like to see their little sister in a hospital bed? How do they describe what it does to spend time on an oncology floor and realize those rooms are filled with children just like them? How do they explain the fear of knowing that something bad can happen to someone you love, even when they are little? And how do they carry all of that, then wake up the next morning and simply go be a kid?

That is the part I wish more people understood.

Siblings do not get to step outside of childhood cancer just because they are not the patient. They absorb it and carry it home, to school, and onto the field. They carry it in the way they protect their sibling and in the way they grow up a little faster than they should.

That is exactly what I see in my boys.

Chandler has gone out with us to hand out Childhood Cancer Awareness posters because this matters to him too. He has walked into businesses to help spread awareness because he understands what is behind those words in a way no child ever should.

Kaiser wears “Cancer Sucks” stickers on his baseball helmet.

To someone else, that might look like something small stuck to a helmet. To me, it says everything. It says he carries this with him. It says cancer became part of his childhood too. It says he knows exactly why those words matter.

These boys have turned some of the hardest things they have ever lived through into advocacy, and I am so proud of them for that.

But there is also something deeply unfair about having to be proud of children for becoming strong because life gave them no other choice.

They should not know oncology floors or what scan anxiety feels like. They should not recognize the fear in a room before anyone says a word or know what it feels like to worry about whether their little sister is going to be okay.

They should have been allowed to simply be her brothers. To annoy her, protect her, argue with her, make her laugh, fight over stupid things, cheer for her, and grow up beside her.

That should have been enough.

Instead, cancer handed them a second childhood alongside the one they were already living: one filled with fear, hospitals, uncertainty, and things they will never be able to unsee or unknow.

And still, they show up.

They show up for Brynlee and for awareness. They show up in ways people probably do not even notice.

That is why today is for them.

For Chandler.

For Kaiser.

For every sibling sitting beside a hospital bed. For every sibling walking through an oncology floor, trying to understand a world no child should have to understand. For every sibling who learned too young that cancer does not care how old you are. For every sibling who carried fear quietly because there was already so much happening. For every sibling whose childhood changed too.

Childhood cancer may live in one child’s body, but it reaches into every corner of a family.

FACT OR MYTH: Siblings of children with cancer can experience lasting emotional effects from their sibling’s diagnosis and treatment, even though they were never the patient.

Fact or myth?

09/04/2026

Childhood Cancer Awareness Day 4 💛

This picture was taken after Brynlee’s seven and half hour brain surgery, and no matter how much time passes, I can still feel that day in my chest.

I remember waiting for the phone call that she was done. Waiting while surgeons were operating on her brain and knowing there was absolutely nothing I could do except sit there and hope with everything in me that the next call would bring good news. Time did not move normally that day. Every minute felt too long. Every thought went somewhere terrifying. I was exhausted, scared, completely helpless, and somehow expected to keep functioning while my entire world was falling apart right in front of me.

Just weeks before, I was taking Brynlee to school. Then suddenly I was sitting in a hospital being told my daughter had brain cancer, waiting for doctors to remove a tumor from her brain. There was no time to process it. No time to prepare. Childhood cancer does not gently enter your life and give you time to catch up. It rips through everything you thought was normal and leaves you trying to figure out how to survive inside a life you never imagined would be yours.

When I look at this picture, I do not just see Brynlee after surgery. I see the moment everything changed. I see the beginning of an exhaustion I still have not fully made my way out of. I see a sadness that never really left, even though it has changed shape over time. I see the version of me who existed before brain cancer and the version of me who had to learn, almost overnight, how to live with fear sitting beside me every single day.

And this is exactly why Childhood Cancer Awareness Month matters so much to me.

Because while families are living through moments like this, sitting in surgical waiting rooms, watching their children go through surgeries, radiation, chemotherapy, scans, procedures, and treatments that can affect them for the rest of their lives, childhood cancer research is still fighting for a shockingly small share of federal cancer research funding.

Around 4%.

Four percent.

I need people to really sit with that number.

This is not four percent of a problem. These are children having brain surgery. These are parents waiting for phone calls they are terrified to receive and desperate to hear at the same time. These are families having their lives split into a before and an after in a matter of days, and then being expected to somehow keep going.

That is why September cannot just be about gold ribbons and changing profile pictures. Awareness should make people uncomfortable enough to care. It should make people angry enough to ask why children are still fighting for better research, better treatments, better options, and more funding while families are living through this every single day.

Once you have stood beside a hospital bed like this and watched your whole life change in front of you, four percent does not sound small.

It sounds insulting.

So for Childhood Cancer Awareness Day 4, here is today’s Fact or Myth:

Childhood cancer research receives the same level of federal research funding and attention as adult cancers.

Fact or Myth? 💛

09/03/2026

Brynlee had PT today, and I swear there are moments with her that hit me so much harder than I ever expect them to.

She is doing so incredibly well and getting stronger every single day. Today she even rode a bike all by herself, and standing there watching her pedal on her own just about did me in. To somebody else, it might just look like a little girl riding a bike, but I know how hard her body has had to work to get here. I know the things that used to come naturally that suddenly became difficult. I know how many times she has had to keep trying even when she was tired, frustrated, embarrassed, or just wanted her body to do what she was asking it to do.

So when I watch her do something like that now, I don’t just see a bike ride. I see how far my girl has come.

She keeps surprising me. She keeps pushing herself. She keeps getting stronger, more confident, and more independent, and I am so unbelievably proud of her. There is something about watching your child fight so hard for pieces of a childhood they should have always been able to have that changes the way you see these little moments forever.

And now my baby is getting ready to turn SIX on September 26th. She is already so excited about her birthday and talks about it all the time, and I just keep looking at her wondering how in the world we are already here.

Almost six years old. Riding a bike ( with training wheels) by herself. Getting stronger every day.

There were times I was terrified of everything cancer might take from her, and now I get to stand back and watch her keep taking things back for herself.

My mommy heart is just so full today. I am so, so proud of you, Brynlee. 🩷

09/03/2026

Childhood Cancer Awareness: Day 3 💛

When Brynlee was diagnosed, I wasn’t thinking about what her life might look like at 15, 25, or 35. I wasn’t thinking about puberty, fertility, hormones, or all the things her little body would still have to go through as she grew up. I was thinking about one thing and one thing only. Keeping my daughter alive.

That’s the part of childhood cancer treatment people don’t always understand. Chemotherapy and radiation can save a child’s life, but those treatments can also leave behind damage that follows them long after treatment is over. Radiation doesn’t just touch the tumor and disappear. When you are treating a child whose brain and body are still developing, it can affect growth, hormones, learning, memory, thyroid function, development, puberty, and so much more. Some of those effects can show up right away, while others may not show themselves until years later.

Chemotherapy can leave its own lasting effects too. It can affect hearing, nerves, the heart, fertility, and even increase the risk of other cancers later in life. That is such a hard thing to wrap your head around because these are children. Their bodies are still growing. Their futures are still being written, and sometimes the very medicine used to save them can change parts of that future forever.

One of the hardest things for me personally was realizing what treatment could mean for Brynlee’s reproductive future. She was nowhere near puberty when she was diagnosed. She was still just a little girl, so there was no simple option to freeze eggs or preserve that part of her future the way an adult woman might be able to before treatment. I had to understand that while we were fighting to save her life, there was also a chance that the treatment could affect whether she would ever be able to have children of her own someday.

That is such a heavy thing to carry as a mother. Your child is fighting brain cancer and somehow you are also being forced to think about pieces of her adulthood that she is far too young to even understand yet. Of course I chose treatment. I would choose Brynlee’s life every single time. There was never a question about that. But there can still be grief mixed in with the gratitude, because saving your child should not have to come with wondering what parts of their future might be taken from them in the process.

People look at Brynlee now and they see kindergarten, smiles, playing, laughing, growing, and getting stronger. I see every bit of that too, and I am thankful for it in ways I could never fully explain. But I also know that childhood cancer does not always end when treatment ends. Sometimes the fight simply changes. It becomes therapy appointments, watching her growth and development, monitoring hormones, worrying about late effects, and wondering what may show up years from now because of everything her little body had to endure just to survive.

These children deserve more than treatments that simply keep them alive. They deserve treatments that protect the lives they still have left to live.

So for Childhood Cancer Awareness Day 3, tell me what you think..

FACT OR MYTH: Once chemotherapy and radiation are over, the damage from childhood cancer treatment is over too? 💛

Brave Like Brynlee

09/10/2026

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