2: The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry

It goes without asking that you've seen those terrible retirement savings commercials where no one except perhaps, a mega lottery winner, has saved enough to retire comfortably?  You know what I'm talking about.  For example, if you divide your IQ by four and multiply this by your shoe size and add five zeros, this will tell you how much you should have sent into Fideliguard by age 30.  Well believe it or not, my wife and I have actually socked enough money away to meet their lofty expectations.  Though, I'm not so sure they are looking after our future welfare as much as they are ensuring their fund management fees are forever secure.  Anyhow, life was looking really good for us.  Our oldest son Ryan was doing great in school and simultaneously kicking soccer balls and shooting hockey pucks like a budding pro.  All seemed perfect for an early retirement about the time our offspring shuffled off to university.

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Then the Mayan Apocalypse occurred.  If your memory is good, you might have recalled that the Mayan's said the world would end on 12/21/12.  Of course, one really shouldn't put much weight on the advice of a civilization that regularly sacrificed the loser of the local ball game.  Though admittedly, I've often felt such treatment would be fitting of a certain New York Jets owner. None the less, society didn't end.  But we did bring onto this world our second son whom we call, "The D."  The D was a tough baby.  He was extremely difficult to keep happy.  Not even the Mommaroo would calm this baby down.  Pretty much the only way to calm this bugger down was to hold him belly down running back style.

As The D approached the age of one, we noticed him falling a little behind in daycare and a major speech delay was adding to this delay.  Over the next two years, The D became more and more miserable and his ailments progressively worsened to the point where he was vomiting regularly and could barely walk without falling.  His speech delay was not improving as well.  To make a very long story incredibly short, Daniel was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor right around his third birthday.  Based on its size, the doctors said he probably had it for 18 to 24 months already.  Out came the tumor, in went a shunt, three rounds of tough chemo, followed by three more rounds of crazy-tough stem-cell rescue chemo, followed by 30 days of proton radiation and The D was back to normal.  Well, as normal as a brain-injured child can be.  The doctors also removed two years of our life and over two times the amount of our rainy day fund leaving our best laid life plans in complete disarray.   But through through the generosity of our neighbors, the hockey community, relatives,  friends and complete strangers on the internet who happened upon our fundraising page.  We went from certain nest-egg destruction, to a completely decent situation that only a Humpty fan could find fault with.  And even with all of this staggering generosity, we still are not whole.  Especially considering how much expensive health care Daniel will need going forward.  And not just health care, but legal costs to fight for a fair education and childcare costs due to Daniel's extraordinary needs.  Which got me thinking...