Claire's Small Footprint Makes a Big Impact: Meet Joshua
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world He gave his only begotten Son so that whoever believed in Him would not perish but have everlasting life."Tomorrow Sunday, May 17th marks the one year anniversary of Claire’s passing. I do not like to say death because truly she is more alive than any of us. Another mom who lost her child calls it a “Heaven Day”, and I think that is the perfect name. Rather than tell you about Claire as we approach her Heaven day, I would rather share the story of one of our newest children. Claire’s memory lives on through the foundation and the families that it touches. Please keep our family in your prayers tomorrow. We ask that the Lord draw us even closer tomorrow, fill us with joy, comfort our soul, and bring peace beyond our understanding.
Hello my name is Yolanda Moore , my son Joshua Moore (age 4) has always been a very energic child. At the beginning of May (around may 6th) josh started having pain in his right arm, I just assumed he slept on his arm wrong. I told him the pain would go away. Two days later after the arm pain developed he seemed more tired than usual. I figure he had been tired from pre-k so i let him rest. Later in the night both his legs begin to give him trouble, he cried complaining of pain. The pain seemed to be hurting him everywhere in his legs, I wasn't for sure what was happening. I had no car to drive him to the ER so late, and the public busses had already stopped running. So I gave him a icepack and he slept through the rest of the night.
On May 9th 2015 He woke up telling me how much he was in pain. I knew my son loved eating candy so I thought I'd try to gain an understanding of where he was hurting in his legs by asking him to walk to the kitchen table and grabbing a piece of candy for himself. In my mind I figure kids love candy, I doubt he'd turn down an offer to eat candy so early in the morning lol. Well at that point I was mistaken, as my son tried to get off the couch and walk toward the kitchen table where the candy was, he instantly started crying. I immediately ran to get dressed and caught the next bus heading toward the hospital. I had never seen my son in pain so much. While approaching the hospital I had to carry him toward the ER, he was in so much pain he couldn't walk. As I explained to the nurses and doctors what happened to Joshua they all seems very shocked as to what was going on with him. They started to perform their normal routine running test and asking lots of questions. After being in the ER for a couple hours while test were being run on josh's blood, a doctor came back to talk to me and explained that the 2 previous blood test came back and it was a possibility Joshua could have leukemia. I felt dizzy, I felt my body fall out the chair" I guess that's what you call an outer body experience" I hadn't fallen but it felt like I did. I could feel my body become heavy. I didn't know much about leukemia but I knew it was cancer. Joshua was admitted to 5100 floor that same day/hour and more test was being done. I met so many nurses, doctors, etc I couldn't keep up with it all. I hated seeing so many test being performed on my son and I hated seeing him in pain.
I spent my Mother’s day may 10th 2015 in the hospital with my Joshua. I just wanted the doctors to find out what was wrong so they could cure him.
May 11th 2015 after many test and procedures was given and performed on Joshua, it had been confirmed that he had ALL leukemia. I didn't know how to feel. I was scared but I knew josh was scared also, so I held back my tears. I hadn't felt so helpless in my life. I felt like I couldn’t do anything for my child, he was scared, in pain, and was looking up to his mom to help him get better so he could go home. May 11th 2015 changed my life. I was glad that leukemia was a disease that could be treated, I was also glad that the doctors found out what was wrong with my son josh, I was even more glad that they could start treatment for him right away. I was only upset that this disease had attacked my son and had him down. I held strong and kept my tears in for a while.
May 12th 2015 that changed, I broke down and cried plenty of times throughout the day. I felt like I could no longer be strong. Josh received his spinal tap, bone marrow aspirations and port procedure today. He was very strong for doing this, he's such a brave little boy. His procedures went well. On this day I also received my Claire parker foundation box. I was excited to read about another person story who went through what I'm going through now. I started reading the book that was in the box, blessings for the morning and on page 10 the message really caught my eye for reasons I felt were related to what I was going through. The message this box carries is very strong! I have faith that my Joshua will make it through this all. I thank you(Claire Parker Foundation) and your family for what you all do to help others like myself! Thank you and God bless!