Ty Louis Campbell - Our Little Fighter
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Our organization seeks less toxic, more effective treatments that are specifically designed for children fighting cancer. Our ultimate mission is to help fund the intelligence and technology that will uncover new ways to cure
Ty fought AT/RT brain cancer more than two years. His mother documented his tremendous journey fighting cancer, and shares the raw emotion of everyday life after losing him.
Ty Louis Campbell - Our Little Fighter
11M ago
Ty and Gavin, July 2010
Gold is an appropriate awareness color for childhood cancer (shiny and new and triumphant), just as gray is a fitting awareness color for brain tumors. Gray matter (get it?), but even more so, the overwhelming feeling when thinking about brain tumors is quite gray. It’s all gloom because it’s all just goddamn awful.
I’m glad it’s been cloudy, cold, rainy and gray because that’s exactly how I feel on this first day of Brain Cancer Awareness month. My memories of what I witnessed leaves me with a dark, colorless range of emotions. I can’t stop thinking of a ..read more
Ty Louis Campbell - Our Little Fighter
1y ago
this is what childhood cancer looks like
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness month. Social media feeds will be flooded with facts and figures about why it’s so important to raise awareness, help families, and fund research for kids with cancer. We need to raise awareness about how many children are impacted by this disease, what the survival rates look like, and how treatment impacts children in the short and long term. But my post today is intended to raise awareness for what this disease does to families. How it impacts the children and parents who are beside these young patients ever ..read more
Ty Louis Campbell - Our Little Fighter
1y ago
Sonny and Ty in 2011
This summer, after Lou’s mother suffered a serious heart attack, my father-in-law was able to embrace her after she was extubated and lucid again. “We did good, right?” I heard her say through her loving tears, foreheads pressed together.
“Yeah. We did good. The kids are good. We did good.”
At the end of this crazy, beautiful, life, a mother just wants to know that she did good. A father wants to know that his kids are okay. Facing their own inevitable sunset, it’s all they cared to validate. That they were good parents. The kids are alright.
The last convers ..read more
Ty Louis Campbell - Our Little Fighter
2y ago
Ty was just the sweetest little boy. He was my whole entire world from the second he was born. He didn’t start talking until he was 18 months old, but then he found his words quickly and had so much to say. He loved buttered rolls and blue lollipops. He braved the high slide at the Magnolia Park all by himself, curls bouncing as I’d watch him climb the high ladder with a pit in my stomach. He loved to race me home on the boardwalk -- his three steps to my one. He held his baby brother and my heart grew even more. He chased down ocean waves. He flew kites. He gave great hugs around the neck. He ..read more
Ty Louis Campbell - Our Little Fighter
3y ago
God, was it a beautiful day on Sunday. After snow on Halloween, I wasn’t expecting it. After the stress of the election and the weekend that followed, I simply wasn’t expecting a day like this and it really made my heart heal. I made a point to get outside alone to smell the leaves and remember the days in November 2012 when I used to sit outside with Ty’s fleece blanket around me, numb, watching the leaves fall all around. And yes, looking for signs from my love.
I broke my foot recently. It was just a clumsy maneuver, not a big deal (or so I thought). But I have to stay put for t ..read more
Ty Louis Campbell - Our Little Fighter
3y ago
On August 11, 2010, it should have been me. It should have been my headache, my MRI, my cancer. I was almost 35-years-old and, up until that point, I had lived life to the fullest. I was as carefree as I was careless. Money burned a hole in my pocket, I traveled often, I loved concerts, I beached it in the summer and snowboarded in the winter, I ate whatever I wanted, I smoked cigarettes (and weed), and aside from pregnancy, I probably hadn't gone one weekend without drinking since I turned 21. I loved life and I enjoyed the shit out of it.
Well, there's some honesty I ..read more
Ty Louis Campbell - Our Little Fighter
3y ago
On this day eight years ago, Ty told me he wanted to play in the sprinklers. He hadn't stood on his feet independently in two years, and he was losing his motor skills at an increasing rate with each passing day. I wrote:
"I swear, sometimes I think he forgets his limitations and what he has been robbed of. It is a child’s right to run through sprinklers in the summertime. To sit in circle time at Kindergarten. To hit a baseball. To have a best friend. A girlfriend or boyfriend! To go to college. To get married. To have kids of their ..read more
Ty Louis Campbell - Our Little Fighter
3y ago
I couldn’t sleep last night. I miss this face. With so much on my mind, I’m not sure I slept at all.
Years ago, I would have gotten out of bed and started writing a blog to clear my head. I could settle my anxiety by expelling all of those thoughts from the day onto virtual paper, so to speak. But back then, I had a story to tell. I shared messages of faith and hope as I navigated a life-changing journey that altered my soul.
Last night, as I debated getting out of bed, I was weighed down by the reminder that I don’t have a story to tell anymore. The bes ..read more
Ty Louis Campbell - Our Little Fighter
3y ago
It's been so long since I've written a blog. Ty's Foundation recently pledged a three-year gift to support the Gift From a Child initiative. We are so proud to be part of this incredible program that is changing the landscape of pediatric brain tumor research. I pasted the introduction to my latest blog here, and hope you will read more.
I took my toddler to the emergency department after a sleepless night, insisting that perhaps he was suffering headaches. Wearing a bright yellow t-shirt that matched his curly blonde hair, cargo shorts and flip flops, Ty jumped and giggled ..read more
Ty Louis Campbell - Our Little Fighter
3y ago
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. In the hopes that new readers might come across this post (please share), it is important to start off by stating the fact that my son, Ty Campbell, died in October 2012. He had just turned five years old. We will never really know if it was the cancer itself or the treatment that ultimately took his life, but we do know this: he died because there were not enough safe and effective treatment options available to him, which is the same reason why any child loses his or her life to cancer.
After trauma, CANCER is the number one ..read more