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Eight-year-old Grace Potvin of Charlotte had a new blow-up mattress, pajamas and a robe ready for overnight hospital visits while her twin sister Ellie undergoes chemotherapy.
But the flu season has interrupted the Potvin family's plans to keep the twins together as much as possible. New hospital rules mean Grace, like many siblings, can't visit during her sister's second battle with cancer.
Ellie's mother Amy Potvin laments that she cannot be two places at once and give each twin what they need from her - or from each other.
Kids are more susceptible to H1N1 flu, have a higher incidence of infection than adults, and are often contagious before they exhibit symptoms. So many hospitals in Charlotte and across the country have opted to keep out kids 18 and under until the flu season ends.
"If you plan to visit, please make sure you are 100 percent healthy," Robbie Howiler of Davidson writes on her Web site before her daughter Marnie's recent cancer surgery. "It would be best if everyone in your house is also 100 percent healthy before you visit."
The site is run by CaringBridge ( www.caringbridge .org ), a charitable nonprofit organization. The group's mission: To bring together millions of families in a global community of care through free personalized websites. Parents can share treatment updates, photos and news about fund-raisers.
For Marnie Howiler, 5, mom and dad's journal entries began a week after kindergarten started in August - with the child's first biopsy. Relatives and friends are able to keep up and help out without being intrusive as Marnie undergoes surgery and chemo for a rare but highly treatable cancer, a Wilms' tumor in her kidney.
For Ellie Potvin, mom Amy Potvin has been posting on CaringBridge since July 4, 2008, when her daughter, then 6, was diagnosed with cancer in her trunk, leg and lungs.
For six months, another parent, Ashton Loyd of Mooresville, has used the CaringBridge to document details of prayerful waiting, "first for life, then recovery and now rehabilitation" for his son Preston, who was run over by a lawn mower last spring at age 4. The boy lost his spleen, stomach and left kidney in the accident.
One latest blessing Loyd shares: Preston is drinking hot chocolate.
Marnie Howiler's family has a team, "Marnie's Wilms' Warriors," in the CureSearch Walk to Conquer Kids' Cancer fund-raiser on Saturday at Freedom Park in Charlotte. Details: www.curesearch.org.
On Sunday, at 2 p.m., the Charlotte Checkers and supporters of the Potvin family team up for a "Fight Night for Ellie." Tickets can be purchased at www.gocheckers .com/ellie/ . Or go to the site www.liftupellie.com/ to donate.
