{"id":558,"date":"2009-07-01T19:36:51","date_gmt":"2009-07-02T00:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/escribble.wordpress.com\/?p=558"},"modified":"2009-07-01T19:36:51","modified_gmt":"2009-07-02T00:36:51","slug":"help-charmaine-lim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kirantarun.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/01\/help-charmaine-lim\/","title":{"rendered":"Help Charmaine Lim"},"content":{"rendered":"

A<\/span>s I scour through my feed reads this morning, I came across a blog post from Karen Cheng’s Snippets of Life<\/a><\/em>. The blog post is about a heart-wrenching<\/a> struggle of a child. Charmaine Lim, a four year old Singaporean, is dying of a rare cancer. Dubbed by her mother, Charmaine is her feisty princess<\/em> diagnosed with neuroblastoma<\/a>. She is currently in the 4th stage of her struggle.<\/p>\n

Cynthia Lim, Charmaine’s mom quoted on her website<\/a> as follows:<\/p>\n

I thought over, probably a couple hundreds of times wondering how to write this entry. At the end of the day, I still have no idea what to write.<\/p>\n

Truth is when I first saw the email sent by Dr Aung on the amount needed to bring Charmaine to New York for treatment, I was shocked. $350,000 is the upfront deposit. I weren\u2019t sure what currency it was in. Sent Jolene and Charlene a text message, ending the message with \u201cI would give up if it is in USD\u201d.<\/p>\n

And of course, the bad news never ends.<\/p>\n

$350,000 USD.<\/p>\n

Half a million Singapore dollars.<\/p>\n

How would I ever be able to raise this amount of sum? How do I convince anyone that Charmaine\u2019s life is worth half a million dollars? I don\u2019t know how. I seriously don\u2019t know how. So many times, I want to give up. I don\u2019t know how to think. I don\u2019t know what to think. I don\u2019t want to think. I don\u2019t dare to think.<\/p>\n

A week has passed since I received the email and I know I have already procrastinated a week away and made no progress.<\/p>\n

I am brought up to think rationally and weigh my decisions against benefits and cost. Rationally speaking, I know fully well that half a million dollars can be better spent on saving thousands of malnourished kids in Africa than on Charmaine who only has a 40-50% chance of survival even with the antibody in New York.<\/p>\n

But Charmaine is my daughter. No amount of money can justify how important she is to me. And Jase. Despite Jase\u2019s young age and maturity, I know fully well that he loves his mei mei just as much as I do.<\/p>\n

I would do just about anything to save her. I thought about selling my kidney, being a surrogate mom. They may sound stupid and crazy but my conscience feels so much better with me earning that USD $350,000 because I cannot think of any rational reason to convince you to help me save Charmaine.<\/p>\n

I really thought of giving up. Its so much more easier and I am so tired.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to think about anything anymore. Its easier just remembering the next doctor\u2019s appointment, the next time for medication, the next time to pay the bills and just things I can do without thinking\u2026<\/p>\n

I even avoided Jolene and Charlene for a week because I have no answer for them. Their suggestion to go public and seek for help. My permission to allow them to publicise the materials.<\/p>\n

Even as I am typing right now, I don\u2019t exactly know what am I doing. I don\u2019t know what I have decided. I don\u2019t know the consequences of me typing this.<\/p>\n

The only thing I know for sure is that should anything happen to Charmaine, I would never be able to forgive myself for not trying to fight for Charmaine when all she has to help her is me.<\/p>\n

This is the very reason why I am typing this.<\/p>\n

Dear friends, please help Jase and me to save Charmaine. \"charmine\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Such a young, innocent, sweet angel – Charmaine and her family needs your support. For donation details and words of encouragement, please visit http:\/\/ourfeistyprincess.com\/<\/a>. For current updates on Charmaine’s health, you can visit Charmaine’s blog at http:\/\/ourfeistyprincess.blogspot.com\/<\/a>. Help spread the word around and support this cause by placing Charmaine’s badge\/widget “Feisty Princess needs bullets to fight, be her weapon”<\/em> on your blog, via email, viral communication or conduct a charity drive in your community.<\/p>\n

I am just lost of words at the moment – cannot fathom the type of diseases out there, plaguing even the smallest of soul on earth. Hang in there Charmaine – the angel’s are watching over you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I scour through my feed reads this morning, I came across a blog post from Karen Cheng’s Snippets of Life. The blog post is about a heart-wrenching struggle of a child. Charmaine Lim, a four year old Singaporean, is dying of a rare cancer. Dubbed by her mother, Charmaine is her feisty princess diagnosed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[546],"tags":[38,94,103,111,244,343,392,446],"class_list":["post-558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-friends","tag-angel","tag-cancer","tag-charmaine-lim","tag-child","tag-health","tag-neuroblastoma","tag-prayer","tag-singapore"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pBcTv-90","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirantarun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirantarun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirantarun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirantarun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirantarun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kirantarun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirantarun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirantarun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirantarun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}