I can start.
I completely agree with you. The community support has been outstanding. Everyone at my child's school has helped whenever they could. My employers and all my friends have told me to do whatever it takes to help my son.
The charity involvement has been incredible, so much so that I now have become one of the vice-presidents at Leucan, on the Quebec side. As well, I've been involved with Candlelighters.
It's just incredible what these charities do for us. They help pay for parking. They help pay for the kilometres back and forth. They provide a lot of financial services, but their funds are only based on what they can raise. The number of families is growing exponentially, which therefore reduces the amount they can help each family with.
Also, I find the support is bigger in larger cities, such as Ottawa. You get up north or in more rural areas, where there aren't as many charities involved, where there aren't as many hospitals dealing with pediatric cancers, and their resources become fewer just because of the regional aspect of things.
I really cannot stress enough how wonderful these charities are. However, we do need more financial support that's more standardized throughout the country, no matter what province you live in or whether you're in a rural or urban setting.