Baby Emily

I get emails almost every day asking about Emily Mandell—about her condition, about how her parents are doing, whether there is anything they still need while they’re living away from home in Boston. I feel like I kind of dropped the ball on the Emily front—there hasn’t been an official update on this website for weeks now, and I apologize for that, especially with the humbling knowledge of just how many of you donated to her cause in so many different ways. (The monetary giving alone totaled more than $30,000.)

I know there are many of you who signed up for Emily’s CarePage site (if you still want to do that, the instructions are located here), but I know that for many of you, it’s just another email that will get lost in the shuffle of your inbox or spam folder. AND I TOTALLY GET THAT.

So I emailed Katie (Emily’s mom) the other day and asked if I could republish their CarePage updates on this website so that anyone who happens to drop by can get a quick update without having to log in to another website with a secure account and password. I know many of you continue to think about and pray for this family often, and I wanted to continue to volunteer to get the word out.

Emily is doing great, but the hardest part of this battle is probably just the difficulty of facing one more hard day after another; of continuing to plod through what feels like endless treatments and praying to come out on the other side. Emily’s life might not seem to hang in the balance like it did when she first got sick, but she’s still very, very ill, and she still needs all the support she can get.

To read the backstory and all the updates Brian and Katie have written about Emily, you can go here. It’s nothing fancy or particularly pretty, but I think it should get the job done. I will update that site whenever they update the CarePage, and I will leave the comments open on all the posts so that if you want to leave them an encouraging note or comment, you can do just that. They appreciate it so much. (A link to that site will also be over there on the sidebar here at Not That You Asked. Just click “The Latest Update” under “Emily Mandell.”)

Thanks, everyone. When Emily comes home, we’re going to throw the biggest, wildest, most FABULOUS party, and you’re all going to be invited. I can’t wait for you to meet her.