Oliver Lamb inspired strength and bravery in everyone he met.
Oliver was a strong, brave boy and he made an impact and impression on our lives. He was diagnosed with Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), a cancerous tumor in the Pons region of the brain, when he was 3 years old. He lost his battle on February 3, 2014 at the age of 4.
I wanted to honor Oliver and his family -- parents Mike and Gretchen and siblings Kai and Emerson -- during the Twin Cities Marathon. His family suggested we help support the needs of other families by raising funds for the child life specialists in Children's home care program. For more information, you can take a look at Children's child life page on their website.
Oliver's mom Gretchen explains why child life specialists are so important:
"When we found out about Oliver's diagnosis and prognosis, amongst other things, we instantly were thinking about Kai and Emerson and Oliver. In the midst of our shock, horror, fear and grief how were we ever going to explain what was happening? We couldn't comprehend what was going on. How in the world were we supposed find a developmentally appropriate way to explain it all to the kids.
In walked the amazing child life specialist. There was very little any doctor or nurse could provide Oliver and our family on this journey. The child life specialists however were with us every step of the way. They answered our questions and gave us language (literally scripted language at times) of how to explain things to Kai and Emerson. They kept us in the present and guided us through each stage of the process.
Once home care started coming they sent a home care child life specialist as well. Kai and Emerson instantly bonded with her. She understood them and could answer their questions when Mike and I (the parents who should know everything) could not. Our child life specialist came weekly to meet with them. In Oliver's final days she sat upstairs with Kai and Emerson playing games, doing projects and prepared them for what was to come. The morning after Oliver died our child life specialist was at our door. She sat with us, cried with us and instantly started helping Kai and Emerson process what just took place. She continued to come to our house for a month after Oliver died. During that month the tools she gave our family to begin healing are invaluable. If this service did not exist I can't even imagine how scary and scarring this experience would have been for Kai and Emerson."
We want to help make sure other families continue to have the chance to work with these amazing specialists.
DONATION BONUS!!!!!!
While my entire running weekend is dedicated to Oliver Lamb, I would be honored to dedicate individual miles or to someone who meant a lot to you as well.
If you make a $50 DONATION - I will carry the name of your loved one with me during my race.
After you make your donation email me (robe0255@umn.edu) with the name of the person you want on the badge.
Grace has designed the name badges for me to pin to my back while I'm running. Here is what she's been working on.
