The Comfort Corner – Welcome to Our Foundation Family!
Hello everyone! Welcome to The Comfort Corner, the official blog of the Super Sam Foundation! Here at the office, we wanted to keep you all more involved in the heart of our foundation, so we thought a proper introduction was in order.
My name is Sara Schaefer, and I’m the Office Manager and Comfort Director here at the Super Sam Foundation. We’re excited to announce that our office is now open to visitors Monday through Thursday from 9 am to 3 pm, so please feel free to stop by and say hello! I’d love to meet you.
My journey with the Super Sam Foundation has truly come full circle. I started as a family in need, and now I have the privilege of helping other families navigating similar challenges. It’s an honor to be part of this incredible organization.
Let me share the short version on how our journey started, because I’m sure I’ll share more of our journey throughout other blogs….
It all started the week before what we thought would be a fun family vacation to Arkadelphia, AR, where we were looking forward to staying in a treehouse!
On the drive down, our son Ezra started having trouble peeing. We initially suspected a UTI, and I even had some leftover amoxicillin from one of our other kids.
Monday arrived, and Ezra and his brother Zeke were thrilled to head to day camp at the YMCA – something they had been looking forward to for months! They came home tired out, as expected. I didn’t see Ezra pee, but I assumed he had before leaving camp around 5 pm, and then it was quickly supper time and bed. Everything seemed normal.
By 8 pm, Ezra’s stomach started to hurt and felt a little hard. Maybe he just needed to poop? By 10 pm, he was screaming in pain. My husband, Daniel, felt his stomach, and it was hard as a rock. Ezra was pale and shaking uncontrollably.
We rushed him to the ER, and they took us right back – no waiting. That should have been our first clue that something was seriously wrong. An ultrasound revealed a full bladder, and a catheter was immediately needed to relieve the pressure. Instant relief washed over him, and I had my sweet, smiling Ezra back.
Another ultrasound was ordered to ensure all the fluid had been released. During this scan, the doctors saw something else. Maybe it was the catheter? Clue number two. An X-ray was ordered to get a better picture. The doctor then performed a rectal exam. Had he fallen on something? She could feel something but wanted to see the X-ray – clue number three.
I could hear hushed conversations in the hallway, the doctor on the phone with MU Children’s Hospital. Why would our local ER need to call another one? She came back into the room and told me Ezra needed a full abdominal ultrasound to figure out why this had happened. Okay, great, let’s do that. She told me it would have to wait until tomorrow because the “main person” would be there. Okay, I could understand that; after all, it was 2 in the morning. We were released, and for a moment, everything felt okay again. I should have seen the clues by now, what ER needs to wait a day to do an ultrasound.
Our local pediatrician called to schedule an appointment for that very morning. Great, I thought, we can get him in quickly, and he can still make it to camp. I remember talking to my sister-in-law on the way there, telling her I thought it was just a UTI or, at worst, a kidney stone. My biggest fear was that they would tell me it was nothing, a fluke.
Our doctor came in with a warm smile and asked Ezra how he was feeling. Then she asked me if I had seen that ultrasound. No, I hadn’t. “Okay,” she said, “let’s take Ezra into this room, and he can play with this cool toy.” In my head, I was thinking it must be a kidney stone or something requiring minor surgery. Why else take him into another room?
She got Ezra settled with a toy, and we went back to the exam room, where she pulled up the images on the screen. She looked at us with a directness I’ll never forget and said, “I wouldn’t be a good doctor unless I tell you this straight, this is cancer.”
