The Change for Cash blog started two years ago to share our plans for taking Cash to India for stem cell treatment and then continued in order to track the resulting progress. The first entries are all about why we decided to do this momentous thing and then the first few months tell how we accomplished it. The outpouring of support from our friends and community during that time forever changed my life. I will always remember and be grateful for the love and generosity that were shown to us - I think I saw some of the very best in human nature.
We chronicled Cash's first trip to India day by day. That first trip was strange and beautiful and filled with enormous anxiety as we waited to see if the stem cells would help him in any way. We saw progress during those two months, but it was two weeks after we got home that my five year old really started to walk on his own. Over the next nine months, I saw him progress faster than I ever had before, with more eye contact, more cognition, more communication. With that in mind, we decided to take him back to Nutech Mediworld and spent our second Christmas in a row in New Delhi, with the added pressure of letting CNN film our journey. In the seven months since then, I have written about how Cash continues to improve and about how while we cannot be sure that the improvement is due to stem cells, I personally believe that they have made a significant difference.
I have used the blog to share not only our experience with being stem cell pioneers, but also to write about the ups and downs of being a parent to a special needs kid. The IEP meetings, the illnesses, the thrill of even the smallest progress, the heartache of comparison, the joy of hanging around someone who is as close to the embodiment of pure love as exists in the world.
And on top of all the stem cell excitement, the two years of this blog have seen change in our lives beyond those changes involving Cash. There was a difficult divorce, the end of ten years at a great job, a move to South Carolina, eight intense months of school, the loss of Aunt Dianne in our daily lives after being with us since Cash's birth, and then most recently a new town, new home, new school, new job in Nashville.
Change for Cash and change for me isn't going to stop. That is the great, and scary, thing about life - you can't stay the same even if you want to. But I am stopping this particular blog and moving on to a new one. We are entering a new phase of our lives, it is time for a new blog. If you want to join us and see what changes are afoot, please go to mostwithtoast.wordpress.com. This new blog will be password protected, so please contact me if you want access. I mean it - I am truly happy to provide the password - just write to me at
stephaniekrolick@gmail.com.
See you on the other side!