Going for Gold in Pinktober

So, first a quick update: Remember that shadow on the wall that might have been either a teensy weensy mouse or a big, badass rat? Well, it turned out to be….neither! Who knows? Clio’s white blood cell counts last week were too low — a normal, though quite delayed reaction to the last round of chemo she got — so we didn’t go to the hospital as planned. Which meant that what we assumed would be our schedule of stays over the next eight weeks went out the window. And may yet change again, if there are more delays.

Tra la la! Cancer is FUN!

Anyway, we will probably (possibly?) end up going into the hospital this week instead. We won’t know for sure until late tomorrow afternoon after Clio’s labs come back. (A nurse will come to our house and draw blood in the a.m.) My bag is still packed from last week, as is Clio’s, so we’ll be more or less ready to roll.

Now, on to the Gold and the Pink thang:

As you probably know — unless you haven’t been out of your house or on the Internets for the past couple of weeks — it’s Breast Cancer Awareness month, or “Pinktober” as it is known in some circles. Breast cancer is the 3rd most common cancer in the US, but when it comes to sheer marketing / PR power, I think it’s fair to say that breast cancer is number one. Susan Komen for the Cure, the Avon Foundation and other initiatives have worked wonders to raise awareness and money.

And I think it’s awesome. Although I will admit, as the mother of a child with cancer, it’s hard not to be slightly jealous. I know that other people whose lives have been touched by non-breast cancers feel this way, too. (The immensely talented and lovely wife of a co-worker of mine, who lost her battle with ovarian cancer a year and a half ago at age 39, wrote eloquently about this.)

Of course, childhood cancers are much much MUCH less common than breast cancer — only (!) 11,000 new cases per year of all pediatric cancers combined to breast cancer’s 200,000+ new cases. So I wouldn’t expect it to get anywhere in the realm of the same visibility.

But I never even knew September was childhood cancer awareness month until this year. Nor did I know that Gold was the color for childhood cancer awareness.

Next September, though, we’re going to be celebrating around these parts. Well, to the extent that you “celebrate” a disease awareness month. Because next September, my awesome and extremely talented musician husband, Mr. Alastair Moock, is going to be releasing a new album especially for kids and families dealing with cancer (along with kids and families who just dig good music).

This will be Alastair’s third family music CD, and his goal is to make free copies available to pediatric oncology programs around the country. The songs are written and ready to go, and they’re empowering and inspiring and fun. I know that they’re going to bring joy and strength and other good stuff to a lot of kids out there.

The only thing is, making a CD — a good one, with high production value and great musicians — is expensive. And then there are the costs of getting it out to all those programs. And the fact that we’re not exactly flush with cash to invest in creative ventures at the moment. So Alastair is crowd-funding the project.

The support people have shown so far has been incredible. We’re almost there. But not quite.

So if you’d like to put a little gold in your Pinktober and lend a few bucks to this worthy effort, check out the album’s fundraising site, where you can learn more about the project (and hear a clip of Clio singing with Alastair on one of the songs they co-wrote!)

Oh yeah, and there are lots of cool incentives for donating, including a free copy or download of the finished album and a signed copy of some book called Double Time by some joker named Jane Roper.

Thanks in advance for helping out. Here’s the link again.

Then once you donate, go buy something pink!