'We are all closer than we think'

By PAT JENKINS

The Mirror

The support her family has received since her father's death and her son's battle with leukemia in the past year have changed Suzie Schmucker's view of the world around her this Christmas.

"I have come to realize that we are all closer than we think," said the Federal Way woman.

It started to hit her a year ago when her father, Floyd Thomas, was seriously ill. Her mother, Gerry, was his caregiver. "To get mom out of the house," Schmucker said, she and Gerry, who lives in Edgewood, joined a local chapter –– the Glitzy Chicks –– of the Red Hat Society, a women's social organization. They made it to only a few meetings before Floyd died, however.

Shortly after, Schmucker's 5-year-old son, Jay, was diagnosed with luekemia and had to receive intense treatments of chemotherapy and spinal taps.

Schmucker told the Glitzy Chicks' leader, Lois Mills, "that we wouldn't be coming back for meetings for an indefinite time, and why. That was three months ago."

Since then, the members have sent greeting cards to Jay, e-mailed jokes "to keep my humor up" and generally "banded together to help our family get through this difficult time," Schmucker related. Most recently, one of the cards contained a $75 gift certificate for Toys R Us. "They all chipped in to give Jay a special Christmas present," she said. "These wonderful ladies adopted a family they hardly knew."

More support has come from Brigadoon Elementary School, which sent Jay a video tape of what his first day in class will be like when he's well enough to start attending, and from Northshore Multicare, where his main doctor, Khanh Nguyen, and the staff "surprised us with a cart full of toys and games," Schmucker said.

And there's more positive news, the best of all: Jay is getting better, his mother said. Each week, his blood is tested and he's injected with medicine at Children's Hospital in Seattle, but things are looking up.

Some of the optimism comes from the "love and kindness" that Schmucker said she and her husband Lance and their other son, 12-year-old Tony, feel from others.

"Without the support we have been blessed with, I'm sure I would have felt angry and resentful at the situation that's been dealt us," she said. "I'm grateful for the wakeup call. I don't intend to hit the snooze alarm."

Editor Pat Jenkins: 925-5565, editor@fedwaymirror.com

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