Help Walmart and Pampers Support Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals (Giveaway, ends 7/11) #sponsored

This post is sponsored by P&G and I was provided with a Walmart gift card as a thank you for sharing this information. As always, all opinions stated here are 100% my own or those of my family.

This year has truly been a challenging one for my family – in ways we never anticipated. When my 12-year-old daughter began chemotherapy treatments in January, we knew that we would be spending a great deal of time at the hospital, which would add a lot of stress to our lives – logistical, financial, emotional… It’s been difficult but also rewarding, to see her quiet bravery each day, through each port access, infusion, blood count check, transfusion and more. She is a fun, quirky, amazing tween – who loves to read, play soccer and volleyball, write stories, spend time with her friends and above all else, just be a normal kid as much as possible.

We are very blessed to have a world-class children’s hospital right here in town, so only have to travel 15-20 minutes each way. We’ve met other families who travel much greater distances for every hospital admission and clinic visit, who can’t bring other kids up to the hospital to visit on a regular basis, have regular visits from friends and family or run home to grab something they forgot to bring. Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital has innovative medical programs and an incredible, caring staff who we trust implicitly to take the very best care of our daughter. The Child Life staff have been especially amazing with Hannah, who tends to shut down and ignore everyone when she’s in the hospital – but the Child Life folks are so good at drawing her out, getting her out of bed and up and around, playing games, meeting other kids on the floor, participating in activities and reminding her that she’s not just a cancer patient right now – she’s still a kid.

During her last inpatient admission a couple of weeks ago, she was convinced to go downstairs to a hospital-wide luau party being held for kids and their families. Hannah and her sisters decorated cookies, played games, got temporary tattoos, snacked on smoothies and cake, and watched hula dancers perform. Hannah was inpatient during the first half of the week at Camp Catch-A-Rainbow, a local YMCA camp that offers a week for kids who have been treated for cancer – she originally wasn’t going to go late and finish out the week at camp, but the Child Life staff went out of their way to help convince her – and she had an absolute blast, made new friends and can’t wait to go back next year.

Our hospital is part of the Children’s Miracle Network (CMN), which works to raise funds and awareness for 170 children’s hospitals all over the US. As anyone with kids in their life knows – at any time, a child you love could become sick, or injured or need medical care of some sort. Or get cancer. In fact according to the Children’s Miracle Network, every day 2,218 kids are treated in CMN hospitals for cancer. That’s not just a statistic – many days, my kid is one of those two thousand. Tomorrow, yours could be. Every minute, 62 kids enter a CMN hospital, for any reason.

This month, Walmart and Pampers are donating $200,000 to the Children’s Miracle Network. If you would like to make a donation as well, you can visit Walmart.com/cmnh for more information. And if you purchase Pampers (or other P&G) products at Walmart, a portion of the proceeds will go to the CMN as well. My kids have all been out of diapers for years now, but Pampers were one of the brands we trusted when they were little, so I love seeing big company like Pampers and Walmart giving back in a way that helps kids everywhere, of all ages.

The infographic below was put together to show why it’s so important to support Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals – and there is some very helpful information there, some of which I referenced above. But the true reason why I support the Children’s Miracle Network, and Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in particular, is heading back into the hospital tomorrow for her next round of inpatient chemo – Hannah, and every other kid like her being treated at HDVCH or other hospitals around the US.

GIVEAWAY TIME!