My Daddy Paw and his Cancer

I'm happy to say that I'm part of a wonderful Blog Hop that's going on right now called 'Blog Hop for a Cause'  For the month of March the hop will be about Cancer.
Cancer can be hard to talk about sometimes but affects so many family's, including my own.
For this hop, I'll be telling you my story of how I've dealt with cancer with my family and friends.
At the bottom of the post you will find more posts from other bloggers participating in the Blog Hop for a Cause.


My Thoughts about that scary 6 letter word

The thought of cancer has always terrified me. It had always meant death to me and made me feel extremely sad. I'd never been real close with anyone who had cancer and I tried to not think about it much. When I was in the 7th grade a boy in my class who I was friends with missed alot of school that year and no one knew why. One morning, Danny and his mom walked into our classroom. Him and his mom told us that he had Leukemia and was going to be out of school the rest of the year. Everyone cried.... even the teachers. But being the tough and rambunctious boy that he was, it didn't take long before Danny was cancer free and was back at school with us the next school year.

Years past and I only heard of Cancer once more while still in school, when a distant aunt got Breast Cancer. I'm not real close with her so it didn't really bother me too much. I'm sure it would of if she would of passed away but she is now cancer free and has been for years!

That's why I'm not sure why I'm still so terrified of Cancer as an adult when all the people I've known who has had it are still here with me today. But I was never able to overcome my fear.

2012 was full of surprises, some good and some not so good.

My youngest daughter started Kindergarten and her sister went into 1st grade.

My aunt is pregnant with her 2nd child and it's a BOY! (When I got pregnant with my 1st daughter, it wasn't long after that both of my aunts became pregnant too! We all had girls, then I got pregnant again and along came another girl. This time my aunt is adding a boy to the family. Now my brothers, who are 14 and 12, won't be the only boys in the grand-kids/great grand-kids generation.) Everyone is excited!

That was a good part of the good news of 2012.

Some of the not so good news was that one of my good friends from high school was diagnosed with Cancer, Hodgkins Lymphoma to be exact. She worked at my daughters' school and had been doing great. She just had hand surgery from where she sliced some nerves on an aluminum foil box during the first week of school. It wasn't long after her surgery that she got the news that she had cancer. We were all surprised! Lots of fundraisers and benefits have been held to help raise money for her and more are to come. (She has a 3 year old daughter who needs her mommy to live a long and healthy life) She's still doing treatment right now but doing good.

The News

In between Thanksgiving and Christmas, my daddy-paw was diagnosed with Lung Cancer. They had found a mass in his lung a few weeks before at a regular doctors appointment and sent it off for testing. The tests came back positive for Cancer.

The sad part is that I found out about all of this on facebook from a post my aunt wrote. She was telling everyone to pray for her family because her daddy had be diagnosed with Cancer. I was stunned! My mama got intouch with me later on that day but I was mad! Noone had called me and let me know, I found out about something THAT important over FACEBOOK!

I know that I don't go visit my family much, and I'm not just talking about my grandparents... I stay home 90% of the time and I don't see or talk to alot of people but I would of liked to of known about something so important. 

I was mad for a few minutes but I got over it fast and now I'm perfectly fine. I'm very sensitive and get upset very easily these days and I'm working very hard on that aswell.

Growing Up

My daddy-paw has always had a big influence on my life. I never had a very good relationship with my dad or my step-dad so my daddy-paw is all I have when it comes to a good father figure. He's a wonderful man who will give you the shirt off his back if you needed it.... and if he was wearing one lol, He's a mechanic who works in the hot sun all day, so he doesn't wear a shirt often :-) That's one of the main things everyone knows about my daddy-paw. He doesn't wear a shirt often, his hands are always black from grease and his skin is so dark and leathery from working in the sun all his life. He'a also a very funny man! Always cracking jokes and making someone laugh. If we got fell and scraped our knee, he would just look at us with a straight face and said "Does it hurt?" We would always reply with a YES and he would just simple say... "It'll feel better when it stops hurting" Such a joker and LOVES playing his guitar. The song "Daddy's Girl" always brings back memories of dancing on the porch while daddy-paw sang and played his guitar.

My Daddy-Paw and me when I was just a few months old

I bet some of you are wondering why I keep saying Daddy-Paw, I always get weird looks when I say it.

Well it's pretty simple to explain...

When I was a baby, my daddy-paw was trying to tell me what I was to call him. He would hold me in one arm and my aunt in the other, my aunt is only 5 months older than me so she was a baby as-well. He looked at Lynn and said "Daddy" and then turned to me and said "Paw". I guess he wanted me to call him Paw but I had other plans. Being the smart baby that I was, I'm not conceded I promise, I put the 2 words together and came started calling him Daddy-Paw. It stuck! Both of my brothers and my daughters also call him daddy-paw, my little cousins call him Papaw. Since my aunt and I were so close in age, we would always hang out together and end up at the shop with Daddy-Paw. We would bring bags fulls of notebooks, crayons, music, make-up... everything that 2 young girls would need to keep them busy all day. Lynn and I would blast music on our little radio and dance on the flat-bed trucks that would be parked at the shop or we would sit on a blanket and work on our magazine that we made called The Butterfly Club. Just girls being girls while hanging out with our favorite man in the world! I was a bit of a tom-boy when I was younger but I still had alot of girly-girl in me. I remember when daddy-paw would take Lynn and I fishing and I wouldn't put the worm on the hook. It grossed me out and I couldn't get it on the hook like Lynn and daddy-paw could and the fish would eat my worm before I had a chance to catch him. I finally caught my first fish in the creek below my Paws house (Daddy-Paw's daddy) when I was about 8 years old. The fish was a medium size goldfish and I was super excited. I remember the look of happiness on his face when I finally caught a fish. I can picture him sitting on that rock with his fishing pole in his hand, laughing while saying "Well take it off the hook!" and that was another thing I just couldn't do.... Holding a slimmy fish while jerking a hook out of his mouth was not how I wanted to celebrate my first catch! But I did throw him back in the water after Lynn got the hook out of his poor little mouth. The creek was always FULL of goldfish and some of them were HUGE. My uncle use to stock his pond with fish so I'm thinking that some of them made it to the creek but I'm not sure how... I don't know much about fishing except that I use to have alot of fun fishing with my daddy-paw and Lynn. I'm sure that all those fish are still swimming around in that creek but I haven't been there in many many years.

My fear now is that I will lose my Daddy-Paw. He'the one that I want to walk me down the isle one day! He's my daddy-paw and I couldn't picture my life without him, I can't picture my family without him.

The Benefit

The auction tables, overflowing!

On March 9, we had a benefit at a local Lion's Club and the turn out was wonderful! There were lots of donations given for the morning yard-sale and LOTS more for the auction. The Donations really amazed me! I wasn't there for the yard-sale but when I showed up for the Dinner and auction, I was amazed! So many people showed up, I didn't know alot of them but I knew they were supporting my daddy-paw and that made me happy. You could buy raffle tickets and/or get an auction number. Some of the donations were things like gift cards to local businesses, Mary Kay and Avon bags full of products, Clothes, knifes, lots of tools! They even had a four-wheeler and a dirt bike that they auctioned off! Both in almost new condition! I was shocked that so many people wanted to show their support and raise money for my family. I held back my tears more than once! 

They even had live music by a local Blue Grass band called 'Lester Grass'. They were great and showed their support with a very touching speech and wonderful music. All the kids danced in their seats and had a really good time.

This video don't show much of the music but I got a little bit of it.

They had a BBQ dinner that only cost $5 and you got double the amount of food that you would of gotten anywhere else. It was so good that my fiance bought 3 to-go plates for us to take home! You could also buy a gallon size bag full of BBQ! It was awesome! At the auction I was able to get my daughters a couple new toys and some baby clothes for an upcoming baby shower and my fiance got some good BBQ... his favorite food!

The girls opened their toys before I got a photo of everything I got from the auction at the benefit.

Overall the Benefit was a BIG HIT! I'm not sure the exact number of what was raised but I know that it really eased my daddy-paw's mind alittle bit and the money is really going to help out with all the doctor bills.

Right now my daddy-paw is taking it day by day and everything is going pretty smoothly at the moment.

Cancer still scares me but I'm working on that. It will take me a while to come to the realization that cancer has truly hit my family because it's still hard for me to believe. Only time will tell how things will go and we will figure it all out when we get to that point but the only thing that matters to me is that we are still together on this earth.

I'm hoping to have more benefits and fundraisers for my daddy-paw in the near future and if you have any ideas, please let me know. I've been a lost for words for a few months now and have been trying to come up with ideas but I'm not getting very far. If anyone wants to help you can comment on this post or email me at

AutoFaerie@gmail.com

Please make sure you add a catchy Title to the email so it don't get deleted on accident. 

My Daddy-Paw and my youngest daughter.

That's whats important.

I want to thank all the people who were involved with the set up of my Daddy-Paw's Benefit. Including The Erwin Hills Lion's Club, Lester Grass and all the businesses and people who donated money, wonderful stuff and their time.
Our family really appreciate all your time and effort
Aswell as all your care and support!