I don't even know what to make this blog's title...you decide on one

You know, Monday's just generally suck. Don't you agree?

You get back to work after the weekend, you have dozens of emails waiting, you have 23 calls to return, a whole new list of instructions for your week's work...and so the list goes on and on until you get home. Once home, you make the gruesome mistake of not getting take outs...because you find the electricity to be off.

Yeah, it sucks.

My day today was a little like that. Except, I received an sms from one of the Little Fighter's fathers that the child had had emergency surgery today. I call him, and we start chatting. All is well with the child, but the father was hugely upset.

So I asked him what was wrong. His answer made me feel ashamed and sad, unbelieving and astonished.

After almost two years of contacting a certain religious charity for assistance for his family, he was asked to meet them at his house today. This was not a meeting which could be kept to by the father, who is the child's primary care giver, because a normal chemo treatment day, turned into a nightmarish experience. Lymph nodes were found along his neck and scull. These caused great concern to the child's pediatric oncologist, who made the informed and educated decision to remove it surgically immediately.

Once told by the father that he would thus not be able to make the meeting with said charity organization at his home, he was informed that, seeing as he can't keep the appointment, it shows he does not truly need their assistance.

Yup.

You didn't leave your cancer ridden 2 year old to have emergency surgery all on his own to rush over, kiss their feet and apologize because your child's medical emergencies does not fit in with THEIR time schedule? This after this father had to drag his ill child to your offices to prove that he is your child and that the child is indeed ill? After you have spent money you really don't have on airtime to make countless calls to them?

Come on. Anyone, someone....PLEASE, for the love of All that is Holy, PLEASE tell me you think this is as twisted and cruel as I think is is?

This is why I want to let everyone know what the procedures are to add another family to the Little Fighters Cancer Trust.

1. We get contacted by the family or friends of the family, alternatively, we meet the family while we do one of our Hospital Outreaches and deliver our Bags of Hope.
2. We ask for the parents names and contact details.
3. We ask for the child's name and date of birth as well as treating oncologist and number.
4. We call the oncologist and confirm that said child is indeed being treated by him for cancer.
5. We call the parents and introduce ourselves if it was not them personally who made contact. 
6. We offer assistance, making sure they know we do not make promises, except that we will do what we can, when we can and how we can. 
7. We ask for their "story" and a photograph if they want a website profile for their child at www.littlefighters.org.za.
8. We ask for a list of their most urgent needs and information on siblings.
9. We ask if they are supported by other organizations, and in which way. 

We register them as an LFCT Family.

Done.

What truly saddens me is that this father now has lost faith in his religion and his community. He is lost and helpless. A highly educated man who had to stop working because he needed to be his child's primary care giver, living on a chair in hospitals for months on end at times. His wife had to continue working as she has the medical aid. The family has lost almost everything which they, like any other family, has worked very hard to accumulate to build a home.

And now they have been trampled on, beaten down, humiliated, stripped of their dignity and quite frankly, abused.

Yeah. Mondays suck. A lot more for some.

Hopefully Tuesday will shed some light on what we need to do next because what happened here cannot be left as is. This kind of treatment by organizations should not only be frowned upon, but should be dealt with as swiftly and harshly as their poor and callus treatment of families seeking support as a last resort.