When ‘strong is the only choice you have’
One day last July, the day before her mother was buried, she rushed her 10-year-old son to the emergency department with stomach pains.
The next day, after her mother’s funeral, her son was taken by ambulance to McMaster Children’s Hospital.
She said goodbye to her mother, then drove to be with him. He was diagnosed with cancer. Burkitt lymphoma is a very fast-growing and aggressive type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Stella Lampman has been by her son Frankie’s side ever since. She sleeps on a recliner chair next to his bed in the hematology and oncology unit, occupying her time talking with an array of medical staff from doctors to child life specialists (“They always ask how I’m feeling too,” she says, smiling), watching him sleep and praying.
She has intentionally not researched his cancer online.
“It can be overwhelming,” she says.
In November, a tumour the size of a small cantaloupe was removed near his stomach along with part of his colon. The surgeon was a mother too. “You could tell in her eyes she was caring,” says Stella.
Frankie recently began the
first of likely several chemotherapy treatments. It’s expected he will be in the hospital for six months and he might not be able to come home to Welland for Christmas.
Stella’s husband, Jason, is not working at the moment in order to support their two other children, 13-year-old Victoria and seven-year-old Anthony. They are all students at St. Augustine Catholic Elementary School.
The school is inviting the public to its annual Christmas concert on Tuesday, Dec. 18 to raise funds for the Lampman’s. There will be a silent auction, a basket raffle and cash donations accepted.
Stella is a stay-at-home mom. She was seven months pregnant with Frankie when her dad, Frank Rao, died. His last wish was for Stella and her family to move in with her mother.
They did. Stella made good on her promise to take care of her 74-year-old mother, June, who had Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease until she died in July.
Stella had health problems of her own and the family is surviving on her CPP disability income.
She tries to come home once a week to be with her other kids.
On Monday, she drove to Welland to catch part of her daughter’s school choir performance at Seaway Mall then returned to the hospital because on Tuesday Frankie was to have a spinal tap.
People says she’s strong like her mom. “You really don’t know how strong you are until strong is all you need to be,” she says, sitting at the foot of Frankie’s hospital bed.
“When strong is the only choice you have.”
Her words, repeated daily to Frankie are simple, powerful: “Be strong, be brave.”
And yet, as she talks about Frankie, she rebuffs any suggestion that life is unfair with multiple examples of how lucky she is.
“I know we are going through a hard time,” she says. “I feel so blessed.
“Words can’t even express what it means to have everyone in my life.”
In fact, there are so many people helping the family she is worried she won’t remember them all to thank.
She begins with Frankie’s school, St. Augustine. She is thankful to everyone from the teachers who visit Frankie in the hospital and who cooked hot meals for the family at home, to his classmate who bought him gifts with money she was given for her birthday.
The school will turn its Christmas concert into a fundraiser. And between the calls to local businesses made by principal, Jeff Moccia, a Facebook post by the school board, and word of mouth, the school has received gift cards and cash donations for the family and enough gifted items for a raffle and silent auction the night of the concert.
“The kids learn we stand hand-in-hand together,” says Moccia. “We need to help this little man as much as we can.”
Frankie’s best friend since kindergarten, Keagan, misses his buddy at school, says his mom, Tonya Edwards.
“I adore him,” she says, “to see the strength he has through all of this ...”
She misses the sound of Keagan and Frankie running through her house, laughing, calling her Bendy, a kid-reference to the video game Bendy and the Ink Machine and the apparently very funny fact she dresses mostly in black.
Her team with the Welland Ladies Cribbage League and its executive have adopted Frankie for Christmas, and are helping with winter coats, presents and food cards.
Rose City Kids is helping with gifts and a ham for Christmas.
And then there’s Laurie Main and her 18-year-old son, Tanner of Welland -- a family Stella doesn’t even know.
Tanner is collecting gifts, cash donations and other items for the Lampman’s, an act of kindness he does every Christmas in honour of his best friend, Dalton Jacques. Dalton died of cancer in 2016. He was 15 years old.
The Christmas before he died, Dalton organized a toy drive for children at McMaster and Ronald McDonald House. After he died, Niagara Falls city councillor Mike Strange took up the annual collection.
At the the hospital, Stella was connected with programs including Help a Child Smile and Chase’s Gift, which help her with funds for hospital parking, gas and food.
Recently, she was told by Help a Child Smile that her family had been chosen to receive a week-long vacation to Florida, including flight, attractions and accommodation at Give Kids the World Village, an 84-acre resort built to give critically ill kids and their families a cost-free holiday together.
Stella cried.
“I was speechless. All I could do was tear up,” she says.
After her mom died, she was forced to use money she had saved for a family trip to Florida on other expenses and deeply felt a weight of guilt for disappointing her children.
Once Frankie’s health improves, they will go, she says.
For now, they are on a more important life journey.
“This whole journey we’ve been on has been a total life changer,” she says.
“It’s opened eyes to what is truly important … Just being together as a family and being in this battle together.
“Frankie has the hardest fight but we’re right here beside him.”
The community of help frees her mind to be present with Frankie.
“I can’t get over the amount of beautiful people in the world who are willing to reach out.
“I can’t wait until the day I can do it for somebody else.
“I’m going to try my best.”