Scott Kehoe and Amy Novit

00:02 My name is Amy nabat. I'm 51. The date is October 9th, 2015. We are in Melrose, Massachusetts and I am the mother of Abigail and the wife of Scott.

00:19 In my name is Scott Keo. I'm 51. It is October 9th 2015. We're in our home in Melrose, Massachusetts. I am the husband and father of Abigail key 09 being interviewed.

00:41 Scott

00:44 Talk to me about what our life was before Abby got sick.

00:52 Abby got sick of the end of fifth grade of her fifth grade. And before then we're a family of four. Abby had a younger sister Sarah and we had the time we had a dog or a pug we still have they were both in elementary school life was good. They had

01:20 Good school years and

01:24 Consumers and the enjoy being with each other.

01:29 It was it was pretty a dilek looking back on it now.

01:36 The thing I remember most about before Abby got sick was.

01:42 We had just we had the best years I think of Our Lives. We had two beautiful girls. We had so much fun and the girls are best friends. I really was idyllic. We even have a picket fence on her house. Everything was was really really good. And I know at the time I used to think these are the happiest times of our life and I didn't even know it was coming but I thought life is so good that we're going to look back on this and say yes, whatever comes these are going to be the happiest Days of Our Lives.

02:27 Do you want to talk about?

02:31 When a bee first came into the world

02:37 Yes, we were.

02:40 Him and I we were both there. I was in the delivery room also.

02:46 So

02:53 I got to see her come into this world and she was our first child.

02:59 And dumb

03:02 What's emotional even thinking back on it? Even if all this hadn't happened?

03:15 When Abby was first delivered and the nurse came and put her right on me. I just looked at her and it was like an electric current went right into my head and went right through my body and out my toes and I just looked at her and I felt this current and I said I love her she's she's wonderful and I love her and I almost think of it as being like Cupid's arrow that went right through the top of my head and right through my body and I was absolutely in love with her from the very first second. I saw her.

03:56 When Sarah was first born Abby was 2 years old, and I remember when

04:03 Abby came to the hospital today after Sarah was born to meet her new baby sister for the first time and Abby walked into the hospital room. And I was holding Sarah in my arms and Abby ran over to the window to look out and she looked at the bed which was very interesting a hospital bed went up and down and she looked at everything in the room and she wouldn't say hello to her sister. He was studiously not looking at the baby and it took about 30 minutes and then she finally came over and met Sarah and after that she never left and they were best friends from that point onward, but it just makes me laugh that it took her just 30 minutes to warm up to the idea of having Sarah there because I after that they were best friends.

04:57 Hi, this is Scott again are what are some stories?

05:03 Want to share about a b

05:07 Abby was

05:10 Abby was pretty much the happiest child. I have ever encountered. Abby was

05:18 Smiling all the time cheerful. She shared her toys. She was excited about everything always smiling always happy about everything.

05:34 Abby had a really special happy personality. You would like that all the time. I remember people said be careful of the terrible twos because she's going to change and she actually never had a tantrum or a meltdown her entire second year and I remember that because she had her first tantrum when she a week after she turned three and she didn't want to go somewhere and she cried and I just laughed because I said, I can't believe everyone warned me about the terrible twos and she actually got through them beautifully and she didn't have her first milk until she was 3 years old, which is very unusual and I'm but she was

06:16 Happy joking, cheerful. Wonderful child

06:25 What are your what are your Recollections of lb?

06:30 Just that she was always.

06:36 Always seem to be in a good mood and

06:41 A glass half-full type of person

06:50 Very good sense of humor

06:54 Silly sense of humor

06:56 And

06:59 Yeah, she got older.

07:02 Could start understanding things like irony and satire. I mean she was very quick in that way, especially when she was like 13 and 14. She picked up on things very very quickly and

07:26 I used to call her Maya laugh buddy, because when we watching things on TV, she and I would be the ones to laugh out loud.

07:37 And her mom and sister with silent letters.

07:41 So we're the ones he would die.

07:44 Which clouds be asked to be quiet and we're watching things.

07:51 But yeah that thinking of that.

07:55 Are things that make me smile?

08:00 Is her smile and her laugh and her slices of humor.

08:08 I have a video of a b when she was probably 12 or 13 and it's just like a three or four second clip and I don't know why we took it but she was in the car laughing and she just threw her head back and gave a big Justin Abby chuckle and it's the nicest little video and I do like to watch it from time to time because it just makes me happy and it reminds me of her great laugh do the shy girl and she could be very quiet in public, but you had a really really big laugh and I love that little clip of her just throwing back her head and laughing.

08:47 Yeah, that was her being her being so shy she was so socially shy but yet she she loved humor. She loved being in school plays.

09:03 She loved being up on the stage and that always tickled me because I knew that when she got off the stage she would she would hardly talk to anyone but when she was on the stage and she was always bit Parts in plays very small purse but she loved being part of of a school play in a big cast and she took dance for a long time. So we went too many dance recitals that would go on forever and ever but she loved again being part of that dance team, even if even if she wasn't the best up there, she just loved that part of things and that was one of the really I thought really unique things about her personality is that

09:50 He definitely had this performer Jeter. She wasn't scared about being in front of people, but at the same time she was super shy and Indian way.

10:03 When I think back to my school days to I was always at the school plays but also kind of shy and that's why I certainly related in many ways to her in that respect.

10:21 Abby and Sarah had a really special sisters relationship

10:27 Abbey of course was so cheerful and easygoing that a lot of times they got along because she lets her have her way which Sarah readily admits. She said, yeah. That was pretty good. Have you always let me have my way so we got along great, but they got along anyway, they would have gotten along any way they played together. They had their own inside jokes together. They shared a room together for many years. They really depended on each other and enjoy each other they were different but they understood each other and they were wonderful sisters to each other never fought and got along great.

11:21 This is Scott. How did we first discover or learn about Abby's illness?

11:30 It was right after Abby had gotten out of fifth grade graduated 5th grade graduated Elementary School and we were over at a friend's house at their swimming pool. And my friend said, is there something wrong with Abby shoulder and I looked over and I said, no, I think it's just the way she standing.

11:52 And didn't think more about it and actually that afternoon. I helped a bee adjust her bathing suit straps, and I still didn't notice anything wrong.

12:03 And then we were swimming and it was getting towards dinner-time and I looked over it. And she said are you sure there's nothing wrong with Abby shoulder and I looked over and there was a huge lump on Abby's shoulder. It was huge. It was like the size of a grapefruit and I stared at it and I said

12:24 How where did that come from? How did that get there? I literally didn't see it. It had been there for we don't know how long I've gone back and looked at pictures, but it was huge by the time my friend finally pointed it out. It was huge and we made phone calls right away. Got to the doctor the next day children's hospital and it all just snowballed from there. But that was the first time we saw the lump and from the size of it. It didn't look good. We had to wait for a biopsy, but the doctors were pretty sure from a very early point that it was probably malignant cancerous tumor and it wasn't good news.

13:12 It was I think surprising looking back on it.

13:18 How quickly everything happened in terms of getting her into treatment and

13:26 Diagnosis although at the time the time between what Amy just described.

13:34 Discovering it at that swim party to actually getting a biopsy or getting biopsy results in confirmation of cancer.

13:45 Was a good monster really so it was quite a roller coaster emotionally. In the meantime. We also we're going to a family wedding. My brother was getting married blended family said they were new cousins a new a new aunt and that was all wonderful sew-in way was a wonderful distraction in the midst of all this

14:11 I remember when we first met with the surgeon.

14:17 When we first met with Abby surgeon.

14:21 Cool sauce

14:23 Through the next three and a half years that he immediately was.

14:30 Happiness that this was going to be cancerous and in my thought in my Hope was it was just some kind of cyst that just needed to be needed to be drained that it couldn't possibly be cancer. I might also add that my my mother Abby's grandmother had had breast cancer twice and is still undergoing treatment or

15:05 From inflammatory breast cancer so we knew of cancer in the family and the girls knew Abby and Sarah knew that Grandma had cancer, so

15:18 You know, it wasn't something that we had never ever heard of her encountered, but it just like that would happen to a child it is and that the doctors were.

15:33 Pretty seemingly confident even before the biopsy to preservative lead us down that path. In fact when we first went to

15:44 The Jimmy fund to Dana-Farber. We actually met I remember with a psychologist in an intern before Abby had done biopsy results to ask us some sort of in the past questions about what do you know about cancer was sort of service standards are as I think the interview to kind of assess us and the patient Abigail but at that time we didn't know for sure that that's what was the case until I found it. I found it very upsetting and very why are they even doing this? I think it was premature in many respects but in a way it did start prepping us for

16:23 For when we finally got the biopsy results. In fact, the doctors had ordered chemo before we even got the biopsy results. So that chemo is all ready to go before we even got the results because they were so sure that what we were dealing with so they got everything in motion cuz it does take a few weeks to get everything going and they got that started before we even got the biopsy results.

16:50 And one of the things I remember.

16:54 Which was just sort of an ironic twist was my brother and his new wife and blended family decided to take their their honeymoon as it were in New England and they drove up. So this is about three weeks maybe after their wedding and when we're still waiting to hear Abby's results and I remember specifically having the conversation with my brother and our living room where we are now.

17:27 Complaining about how the doctors were all talking and leading us at this is cancer cancer cancer and we don't even really know yet and even got a phone call and within five minutes of conversation she came in and she goes they confirmed and the type of cancer was I mean that was the other thing is that they were telling us it was a sarcoma and so Amy and I will be very studious and reading up on sarcomas.

17:55 And we both

17:59 We both

18:01 New which was the worst kind in terms of being untreatable or not responding well to treatment and that was the other kicker was of course when we got the results back then in fact, it was essentially the most untreatable kind of pleomorphic sarcoma and

18:24 So yeah, that was heard of a double whammy when we a double whammy but yet. We were sort of already preparing.

18:32 And I think like within 15 minutes of that final phone call in terms of a of assessing then we both the girls upstairs and and took her into her bedroom and got them both down to tell them.

18:46 The snooze

18:52 We said we got news back from the doctor and the tumor is cancerous.

19:01 And the first thing that Abby said was am I going to die?

19:08 And we said

19:11 We said we're going to do everything that we can to make you well.

19:18 Because neither of us felt like we could promise that she wasn't going to die because at that point we knew how serious this was so we didn't want to lie, but then again she is 11 years old, and we wanted to be hopeful so we said we're going to do everything we can we're going to work to make you better and she seemed to accept that.

19:44 And I think it wasn't long after that. Sarah said can I go because it was a little too much for she was almost turning nine at the time and it was a little too much for her to take so she she had enough.

20:03 Abby was we found her her tumor at the end of June 2011.

20:11 She went through so many tests during the month of July and then she started on chemo at the very end of July beginning of August. So it really was a whirlwind especially since the whole hope protocol with so foreign to us. We'd never taking the girls to a hospital before and suddenly we were at Children's and the Jimmy fund at Dana-Farber in Boston. We were there constantly and unfortunately, Abby was needle phobia and very very I'm sensitive about having any kind of procedures, even if she had a loose tooth. She didn't want it to be pulled because she was so squeamish about it. So the fact that she had to have

21:04 MRIs and CT teas and all kinds of scans and ultrasounds and blood work constantly and biopsy

21:15 And it was surgery for the biopsy as well. It was pretty much a nightmarish. I don't remember a whole lot about July except that it was a terrible month and then she started chemo or first time in the hospital for overnight stays and she was there for

21:38 Three or four she had a port implanted and then she was there for four days afterwards for her first round of chemo. So that was the first time that Abby had spent that much time in the hospital and it was also the first time that she and I were both away from home and not just overnight but for any length of time and so you and Sarah were left at home for 4 days.

22:03 For the first time

22:07 Yeah, I don't remember much specifically about that other than

22:14 For both of us for both Amy and I

22:19 Just going into the mode we got to do what we got to do and

22:27 I just coordinating things. Luckily both Amy and I seem to be pretty good at coordinating coordinating whatever we need to coordinate pick up some school homework, you know doctors appointments.

22:42 Shuttling back and forth between Boston

22:46 I mean, we are lucky that we live just outside Boston to hearing stories of other parents who had to travel so far to come to Dana-Farber in for us it was

22:58 He could be a hellish commute. But at least it wasn't traveling across the country into a town. You've never been to before all the Longwood area was new to us where the hospitals are.

23:15 But yeah, it was a lot of adjustment, but I remembered that I

23:20 I was and still am.

23:26 Pretty proud that Amy and I were able to

23:31 Keep it all together and just do what we needed to do to get this started and learn about protocols the word that we came to despise after a while but one thing to back up a little bit to about Amy was saying about the hellish first month and all the testing is the one thing we learned which was gratifying but it did take some asking and some consistency in terms of us asking medical providers. Was that for the most part everyone was very accommodating to Abby in terms of her.

24:10 Not wanting to be stuck with needles again and again and blood tests and even the MRIs Abby had full anesthetic if she was put under and they would they would not do things like draw bladder or up and have you until she was under so she wouldn't have to shoot a wake up with a Band-Aid and she always made some silly joke about it about you know, something stuck me while I was asleep pretty good sense of humor about it, but that accommodation it was stressful enough without having your child fearful on top of everything else.

24:48 But yeah, it was quite thinking back even as were talking now realizing. Wow. What a

24:55 Sea change in our lives and our Focus during those first months and during the first protocol in the first protocol was basically

25:06 Blue 6 with more than 6 treatments of chemo and happy having to stay in the hospital for at least four days during the treatment cycle. I'm coming home.

25:20 Abby wasn't able to attend a new Middle School 6th grade.

25:27 For at least the first day, I believe right and then she had to go back into treatment. So they actually timed it so that that would be possible. But she missed most of all that first year. She missed most of her sixth grade because she was in treatment constantly.

25:53 So, this is Scott Amy. How did how did Sarah do through all this?

26:01 Abby had for chemo treatments over the fall she had surgery.

26:07 In November and then she had three more treatments following so that was a lot of Hospital time and we always made sure that Sarah could come visit Abby in the hospital.

26:19 For two reasons one so that Sarah could see where Abby was and it wasn't a mystery and she can visit her sister and her mother and you know feel like she was still connected to what was going on and also so that Abby could have a visitor cuz the happiest times for Abby would be when somebody would come visit her and she loves having Sarah come and there would jump right up on the hospital bed with Abby being very careful not to jostle any lines or whatever was happening medically with Abby at the moment and they would lie in the hospital bed together and watch TV or play games or giggle or whatever whatever in those were some really happy times in the hospital.

26:56 So we always made sure that. Sarah got her time with Abby at the hospital usually got children's was great because obviously they're designed for children's needs. So every Friday evening, they had a pizza party for dinner and Abby would always start chemo on a Tuesday and if all went well she would go home on a Friday. So we always try to time it so that we can leave after the pizza party in the nurses were actually very accommodating cuz I knew we wanted to get out of there and if Abby's chemo ran long she was going to be there for another night. So we always try to make it there for pizza party including Sarah and then we just be taking down the minutes for when Abby could be really soon. We could all go home together and that was a great feeling when we could all leave the hospital on Friday night drive home together and then we knew that we were all together again.

27:48 For at least another three weeks until another chemo treatment.

27:59 Tell me a little bit more about Abby's cancer.

28:03 So Abby had a pleomorphic sarcoma.

28:06 The way it appeared in her shoulder was very common for the way it appears and we have progressed eventually was also very common and textbook if you will be the way it is these progresses. It's a rare sarcoma. That's a rare cancer and it's even rarer and children. In fact, he never met any anyone else who actually had the disease in all her hospital stays adult or child.

28:38 And it's very resistant to Kimo's. So the Kimo's at Abbey. We were just Amy was just talkin about which were through the summer and fall. They were prepping her for surgery. Basically at the time. It was chemo then surgery to remove the tumor and then more chemo to hopefully kill off anything else. That might be left behind. So Abby had her surgery in the fall. They remove the tumor which has the intern surgeon gleefully told us and Abby did charcoal over. It was the size of a softball. It was very big tumor that somehow was wedged behind her between the surface of the skin and her her shoulder blade.

29:23 Margins were clean. The surgery went fantastically well.

29:29 We have all kinds of concerns about where the surgery could go but it really went fantastically well came out clean. Unfortunately more chemo into the winter. And this is now getting into the winter of 2012.

29:44 And then we had a bit of a reprieve there were still scans. She would have CAT scans or MRIs initially every 3 months then I think we're talking about every six months.

30:04 But at least in the spring winter spring of 2012.

30:10 She was cancer-free for that police that or nothing was showing on the scans.

30:18 So she got scans, of course in the summer and I believe was a summer. They started noticing little dots that might turn into something through caps cans and

30:34 Buy I believe was the fall of 2012. That would have been the start of her seventh grade.

30:45 Amy had a I wasn't able to attend but Amy had a meeting with the oncologist.

30:53 Talk about where they thought things were at.

30:58 There was a spot on her lungs. It was metastasized and at that point the oncologist said it's that's it. That's the beginning of the end and more spots will appear but on the next set of scans. There was still just one spot and I said what if it's just that one spot.

31:17 What if what if we could get it and that was it and they said it's not really likely and then we talked to her surgeon and he said you know what? It's not a slam dunk. I'll always remember his words. He said what if it is just that one spot and what if we get and what if the margins are clear, let's try it. And so have you had lung surgery to remove that spot and it was very painful recovery was tough although two weeks later. She has opened dancing at a friend's party. But once again, we were hopeful that they got clean margins. It was out. We were hopeful and that lasted until the next set of scans and there were more spots.

32:01 And other places as well as her lungs and at that point, that's when we knew that it was probably progressing. Warren would not be treatable.

32:14 So after the first two surgeries with individual tumors as time progressed more more scans pet scans CAT scans on an annual basis and more and more spots as they would call them would show up that we're suspicious and to keep an eye on it some more and more things were growing and I remember the phrase by the

32:43 Basically the late fall of 2013 into 2014. I remember Amy at some point for the first time describing it as a Bee being riddled with cancer and that really was what was happening is that the disease was progressing the way it progresses which is just a lots and lots of little sarcomas and lots of different places. Abby had a lung collapse from sarcomas in her lung. So we are back in the hospital now for a lung collapse and get a lung re-inflated.

33:21 So Abby's last hospital stay was also from a lung collapse and that was in the fall in October of 2014.

33:29 She was actually going in to have a check up on a

33:34 Tumor removed on her head right now, and she was complaining about about shortness of breath and

33:42 Go to a local emergency room and sure enough. She had another collapsed lung and she was taken into children's again.

33:51 To re-inflate the lung

33:58 In October 2014 a be suddenly couldn't breathe and I rushed her to the emergency room. She was taken by ambulance to children and they diagnose it as a pleural effusion, which is when there's so much liquid around the longer. It's squashing the one flat and you can't breathe so they drained it but we didn't know that she would ever come out of the hospital again because there was some kind of Bleak the tumors that leapt through her lung and we didn't think that she could necessarily ever safely be home without the lungs filling up again and splashing it. So they drain to liters of liquid out of her lung and then the lungs stayed inflated and the doctors were amazed because I truly don't think they expected that to happen.

34:47 I felt like it was a gift because we didn't intend for Abby to end up in the hospital in her last days. And this was a gift that we could go home and figure out what we wanted her last months weeks days to be like and so she did get to come home and we could talk with her about what what was coming next and what we all decided on and she told me I don't want to go in the hospital again. And at that point we had talked to doctors about hospice and and I could tell her honestly, you don't ever have to go in the hospital again if you don't want to

35:25 Yeah, I think that by

35:29 Basically by 2014 we knew we were going to have to start preparing for things like hospice and inevitability of what this disease was going to lead to and

35:43 As parents that's

35:47 The worst thing

35:56 So knowing Abby was going to die was a really hard on Amy and I

36:04 And one of the things one of the sort of

36:09 Things that I would start thinking about even when I was out in the world grocery shopping for instance going to one of the big box stores.

36:19 Is I've always been somebody who looks expiration dates to make sure I'm getting the freshest can of beans or or beer for that matter and

36:29 It would start crossing my mind.

36:33 Would a BB alive?

36:37 I'm on the state and realizing that that wasn't the case and it was just a funny odd thing that you start to put together when he knows something like this is inevitable and it's kind of be getting hung up on dates.

36:58 Something I remember and still still think about now, I think about the chronology a lot what you meant, but

37:10 Abby had a gold date in mind. She was in Hospice in November and December of 2014. And at one point maybe mid-December. She said I want to make it to New Year's day. That was her goal and

37:27 When New Year's Day came January 1st. I remember specifically being able to tell her happy New Year. You made it to New Year's Day and I was so happy that she made her goal. And then she died the next day. She died on January 2nd.

37:46 So Amy what you want to review what we did in terms of hospice and hospice went.

37:56 Hospice came in in what turned out to be at these last two months of life and I really felt like it was one of the most amazing things we could do for a bee ways to bring Hospice in so she could be at home. She could be comfortable. She could have medications here that kept her comfortable. There was nothing more invasive or intrusive about what had to be done or administered. It was really just trying to keep her comfortable here at home or hospice doctor was wonderful. It was a pediatric doctor and she was really wonderful and took all her all the time that we needed with her which we really appreciated and as hard as it was it was the hardest thing we've ever done.

38:43 But I think it was also one of the greatest gifts we could give him a b and one of the most

38:51 One of the best ways that you can die. If you are have the privilege of directing when and how it's going to happen for you being at home was certainly the best way that it could have happened for a b.

39:09 Yeah, I like I think we we so wanted to avoid and Abby did to being in a hospital and having an IV in you.

39:20 Where are there needles and in the hospital environment, you're constantly interrupted by an especially at a facility like Dana-Farber, which is teaching hospital by all sorts of groups of people.

39:34 And

39:38 Just be

39:40 In her room

39:43 And surrounded by tree stuffed animals

39:48 And her drawings her drawings on the wall.

39:53 Her books

39:55 Yet it was much.

40:02 Much better for us all.

40:04 And kissing

40:08 If the end at least to see much more natural

40:13 A shocking as it is

40:15 Justice

40:18 Know your she was

40:23 I don't really want to talk about her last her last days and weeks much more because it's really really hard to relive.

40:34 And we're just trying to make peace with hoping that we did everything that we could for her to keep her comfortable and happy and

40:45 I don't think I really want to say any more about about that time.

40:51 Yeah, it's um.

40:53 Death is hard and get some.

41:03 It was it's the hardest thing that we've ever been through and dumb.

41:07 At the same time though.

41:11 I remember.

41:14 When she actually passed.

41:17 That it was just ignore me like

41:24 I don't know. It was a calmness that I felt I was like

41:30 Just glad

41:32 That she's in a computer and she's at home.

41:42 When Abby died, the thing that I remember most is the profound absence of her anymore. It was like she had been in the room even though she had been sleeping and then suddenly it was so very clear that she was not in the room anymore. I I've talked about this with another mom who lost her daughter and she agreed. It was the same thing. There's such a spark of being alive and when someone's not alive anymore, it's just

42:22 Profoundly noticeable and their absence is it's palpable, you know that they're not there anymore and no matter what your beliefs are about what comes afterwards. I think that it's very clear that they're not here on Earth anymore.

42:51 What traditions have you started to help honor a bee's memory?

42:56 For me one of the things I try to do every morning.

43:03 Is I going to Abby's room and

43:10 She has a a day a day by day calendar will we call her cuteness calendar? It's basically pictures of cute.

43:19 Cute dogs and bunnies and guinea pigs and combinations and Abby have been getting that as a gift over a number of years. And so she got it again as a gift this past December and

43:41 While she was alive. She only got to go through two days of it, but just to honor her and so it's I go in and I change calendar every day.

43:53 And it's a

43:57 Botha moment over

44:00 Oh, joy, usually her her tastes ran with I think our taste in terms of what's actually cute or not. I am usually the calendar is pretty cute. So there's a moment of joy happy would have really liked this picture or aren't these bunnies and guinea pigs cute. I'll be together or puppies and

44:28 Bennett's realization

44:31 Sadness that she's not there to enjoy it.

44:39 So today's calendar happened to be with two pugs and we own two pugs. And so it was kind of fitting that we're doing this recording and that is something that she would have quite enjoyed and there's one parking right now as a matter of fact.

45:01 One of the other things that I didn't know that would mean so much to me but is having the physical grave marker and visiting her grave and

45:14 Just having that stone with her name on it and

45:18 We were we were fortunate in that the cemetery were using the city cemetery is very close to us so we can visit it easily and often which is nice means more to us than we ever thought. It would be one of the things we get on her Stone was we put her formal name on the front and then on the reviewer of it.

45:45 We quit her up Jordan name. So Abby has a little butterfly because even though she's officially known as Abigail. She was happy to us and it means a lot to me to be able to have that physical place to go to and have that physical Mark put my hands on and can't see her name.

46:19 So Amy what his what's helped? You most with your grief and what gives you strength?

46:27 The thing that's helped me most in the time. It's in Tabby's has died is talking about her. I do talk about her pretty much every day.

46:49 After Abby died, the thing that helps me most is just continuing to talk about her because she's a part of our lives and she will always be a part of our lives.

47:02 I think I mentioned her everyday and passed sitting or casually or

47:08 It's just natural because she was my daughter and so I'm just going to talk about her.

47:15 When we attended the bereaved parents group, that was one of the more profound.

47:23 Things that we could have done to start our healing because we were meeting with other parents who were in the same situation and they really understood us and we understood them and

47:34 There is a way if we are formed behind and I think that was really one of the most helpful things that we could have done and we were lucky to find a a group like this and we were lucky in that the makeup of the group was wonderful and we all really appreciated and enjoyed and respected each other.

47:54 It's hard being a bereaved parent and some days. I can be fine and some days. It hits me all over again. And sometimes I'm shocked that this happened in. This is now part of our story. But Sarah helps me go on. She's probably the best the best source of strength that I can get is to have Sarah and

48:27 And I have the starter at home who who I love and and is so important to me.

48:39 I mean we're recording this 10 months.

48:43 After a bee passed away

48:46 And

48:51 It

48:53 Yeah, I really I realize to how much this is now part of our lives and how we're going to think about it if some point every day and

49:03 And that it does sneak up on you and that you can get through a day and get through work.

49:09 Usually if you're distracted, but then they'll be a little thing that happens. And for me, I have a very long commute back and forth to my office and is inevitable at some point. I'll think about it. I'll be yours or what ifs or or or good or bad stories and it's it's just part of the life our life now and having having her sister and her whole life ahead of her. I think helps us get through this.

49:40 And having distractions like the pugs. Would you heard barking during this recording but I mean, so there's things

49:50 But at the same time it's just an ever-present part of your life and it is a

49:58 It is still shocking but that's part of our real life is that we have a

50:05 14 year old daughter passed from cancer so

50:11 So Amy, is there anything else you want to add?

50:17 I think there's so much that we could add but I think we'll stop here.

50:24 Thank you. Thank you, and I think Abby.

50:30 Would be thrilled that she cheap she knew what MPR was and storycorps and she would have really gotten a kick out of all this to but it's unfortunate why we're happy to do this. So, thank you.