My sister works for a very small company. One of her coworkers has a 16yo daughter that just got diagnosed with cancer. She has a 15cm tumor attached to her bladder, and the size/location/integration means they can’t remove it via surgery. She starts chemo tomorrow.
4 Likes
A little kid got hit in a fast food drive thru line. He died from his injuries.
3 Likes
The father in this story is an old friend of mine. I’ve known him for most of my life, and I can’t even wrap my head around this horrible accident.
7 Likes
OMG, how awful. I can’t even begin to imagine.
3 Likes
One of the managers at my company passed away recently. We are just floored.
7 Likes
1 Like
My dog is dying. She’s 13, and was really sick 3 years ago, so we’ve had some bonus time. I’m grateful that she’s lived long enough that all the kids will remember her. But it still sucks.
15 Likes
Always an extremely difficult time. We recently put down a dog of 11 years. He lived his entire life on drugs due to hip dysplasia from birth and some crazy allergy issues his entire life (plus some other issues). Popped up with a tumor in his stomach that we could remove and with a 50ish% likelihood he could go back to his previous “quality of life” or maybe it would be worse and he would die in pain soon anyway. It’s pretty clear (on paper) his previous quality of life wasn’t all that great, but he’d been with us for all but 6 months of that life and despite his issues he seemed mostly happy so accepting the right course of letting him go for his own good was not an easy decision. I still have to tell myself it was the right choice every time I think about it.
7 Likes
A month ago we had a family reunion. It was very nice and super well attended. All agreed we needed more fun reasons to gather from afar.
Instead, this Friday is the funeral for one of my cousins who attended. He was 58 and apparently ended his own life. He was a sweet guy, quick to laugh and welcome you. I wasnt that close but we enjoyed when we saw each other. It is sad.
12 Likes
So sorry, Samantha. That’s the worst!
We found a guy shortly after moving here that did odd jobs for us. Some landscaping, cleanup, he helped demo the basement. He was always willing to work hard and he was a super nice guy to be around. He struggled with addiction to opioids and had highs and lows. After falling off the wagon last year, he wound up homeless, so we tried to give him things to help him get through the cold etc.
I hadn’t heard from him in several months, which is unusual, and I found out last night he died from a drug overdose, likely fentanyl.
9 Likes
The county is filing for permanent custody of our foster son. The hearing is in two weeks. This could change any minute before the hearing, but is less likely to now. We haven’t told foster son yet…no idea how to broach it.
2 Likes
As in, they take the kid away from you? Why would they do that?
Dahel??? 
No, sorry, permanent custody is where the state takes custody away from the bio parents, permanently. Our foster son is about to come a ward of the state.
(We will adopt him, but that’s a separate process from this, and can’t happen until he has been with us for at least six months anyway.)
1 Like
If you were planning to adopt him anyway, isn’t this something that would have happened eventually? Is the downside just that you have to tell him before you can formally apply to adopt him?
1 Like
So, yes, but the goal of foster care is not adoption, it’s almost always reunification. His dad loves him so much, and is simply unable to provide him with what he needs.
It’s a sad thought because it’s a failure of the process. But, there is still a hopeful ending in spite of the trauma, which we are glad for.
7 Likes
So you were hoping for reunification, but will now adopt since best available result? Yes, that would be a Sad Thought.
1 Like
Will you still have the father maintain contact?
That’s so hard. Is he still going to be able to see his father at all? I suppose you want to get out in front and tell him either before his father does or before he randomly happens to ask “why don’t I ever see Dad any more?”
That said, probably the longer you can wait to tell him the better. The shorter the time between when you can tell him about his dad vs telling him that you’d like to adopt him is probably good. (Since he might feel pretty alone during that period.)
I am not an expert though… just my thoughts that might not be optimal.
Good luck with all of it… it’s a lot.
1 Like