Hope4Peyton

Two years ago we set the goal. We fixed our eyes on the prize.  We knew that this would be the ultimate fight.  It has had incredible highs and shattering lows.  We have been tried to the point of breaking and blessed beyond our imaginations. My family, my marriage, and my friendships have been tested and we have come out stronger on the other side.

We’re not done yet, but the flag waving over the finish line is in sight.

October 30th is the day Peyton takes her last dose of chemotherapy. No more clinic trips to have chemo in her port, no more lumbar punctures to fill her spinal fluid full of poison, no more daily cups of pills to take.  I hope. I pray. I pray a LOT.  I pray with the knowledge that no matter what God hands us, THIS is what my heart desires beyond all other.  I pray that no matter what God hands us, he will continue to provide the strength to endure it.

I had a long talk with one of Peyton’s oncologists on Wednesday when we went to the clinic for her monthly dose of Vincristine.  We talked about her end of chemo date. My heart both thrilled to know that the date is approaching rapidly and pounded in anxiety to know that we are going to be flying without the safety net.  We discussed post treatment follow up, the bone marrows and spinal taps, the blood test and the monitoring.  The searching for signs that the disease is back.  Relapse…she called it “reoccurrence”, but it doesn’t matter what you call it…is always a threat.

Watching child after child after child relapse in the past 6 months, that fear is more present…more REAL…than ever.  Dr. Kelly’s faith in us is more than I want to think about.

“You know the signs.”

Yes, I do. I’ll be watching her for bruises that may pop up and decide not to go away.  I’ll be checking those lips and cheeks to see if she looks paler than she did yesterday.  There will be a flutter in my heart if she seems fatigued or complains that she aches.  I know the signs all too well.  I will see them when they aren’t there, I’ll be waiting for them to rear their ugly heads.

This week her counts were great. All the counts were lovely and high and I held that piece of paper in my hand and thought about how many more sheets I’ll add to the hundreds I already have.  Each one adding another week, another month between cancer and us.  I pray there are many. That they continue to show that we have beaten the disease.

You may have noticed the new ad in the left sidebar of the site. If not, take the time to notice it.  Our family will be participating in the Cure Kids Cancer Challenge on September 13th.  You may not know it, but September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness month and the 13th is now our National Childhood Cancer Awareness Day.  On the 13th we’ll be walking as a family to raise awareness of what kids all over the world are enduring in the fight against pediatric cancer, we’ll be raising money to fund the research that will provide more effective treatments and cures.

In the next weeks, you’ll be given LOTS of opportunities to give to great childhood cancer causes.  The Pediatric Cancer Foundation that is dedicated heart and soul to giving children the tools they need to fight for their lives. The Children’s Cancer Center that has a mission to improve the quality of those lives.  Generation Cures which is comitted to educating and promoting compassion in kids through play, to enable them to help their peers in the fight against cancer, because if we can reach them young, that’s the next generation of advocates. Consider yourself very blessed if you had no idea that foundations likes these even existed, because that means you don’t have to worry about your child’s heath the way thousands of families do.  But now you do know, and I hope that I can encourage you to contribute to the hope that sustains so many, when hope is all we have.

This is Peyton before cancer came into our lives

This is how she taught us to be courageous

This is how she taught us joy

This is our survivor

Peyton vs Wii boxer dude.

Peyton totally whuupps his butt.

Notice the Venus Williams style grunting involved in her attack.

Take into mind the varied quality of her smack talking ability: “Go down, you old man!” “Barnacles” “Take that! And that!”  and if you wait until the veeeery veeeeery end, you’ll hear her masterpiece.  (And me giggling uncontrollably)

“I hope I hit him in the nuts!”

Would you want to meet up with this brute in a dark alley? I think not.

That’s my girl.

I lost a child already.

When I was 21, before I met Peter, I miscarried a baby that I hadn’t even known that I wanted until the moment the choice was taken away from me.  My first instinct was to get rid of that baby, that I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t prepared. I spent days planning to make this inconvenience go away.  Then the clarity came that I might never BE ready for a baby, but I had one now and I was going to do my best to be a mother.  I told the father.  I cried when I told my mom.  But I was sure I was making the right decision.

Three days later I lay in the hospital, as the child I was just starting to anticipate was lost to me forever.  I cried tears from a place inside me I never knew existed. I mourned the baby that was never to be in my arms.  I spent weeks laying on my bed, unable to make myself get up, move, bathe, want to live. I felt the most incredible guilt I think a person could feel because I knew in my heart that I had wished that baby away in my days of uncertainty.  And now it was gone.

I spent years waking from dreams of a crying baby, me wandering halls, searching frantically for that child.  I spent months unable to even bear looking at a pregnant woman or a baby snuggled in its stroller.  My best friend had a newborn and I was angry and resentful that she got to have her baby.  There aren’t words to describe how I felt after my miscarriage: devastated, destroyed, incomplete.

And this was a child I’d never even seen. Let alone cuddled in my arms.  I’d never stared into its eyes, felt it’s silky skin against mine, soothed its cry with the touch of my lips to its brow.  I still grieved for that child with every fiber of my being.

Each pregnancy with my three beautiful children was faced with fear. I would hold my hand over my belly and beg for movement.  I would lay awake at night and cry out of fear.  I would still have those nightmares of crying babies, only there would be multiple cries.

With the birth of a healthy baby, the fear would subside and I could move into just loving and being a mom.  The nightmare had gone.

Until Peyton was diagnosed with cancer.  I guess a part of me never even fathomed that once I got my baby into this world that there was anything that could steal her away.  In the way that you know there are car wrecks that take lives, accidents that happen, diseases that kill…those happen to OTHER people. It would never happen to us.  It would not come to THIS house.

It did.

I’ve met incredible people who lost a child and through the pain made incredible things happen from the loss.  I’ve watched friends wage the day-to-day battle to find a reason to continue after their child’s death. I watch and am in awe of that, because I fear that if it were to be us, to be Peyton…to be me who had to get up and find that reason to go on, I wouldn’t.

I can tell myself that I would. I have two other children who would need me and a husband who loves me and a family to keep together.  I want to believe that I would be strong enough to let my faith carry me into healing, that my love for them would sustain me.  I see the examples of the person I want to be confident I would be.

But I fear that if Peyton dies, I will die with her.  The parts of me that are good and loving and whole will be gone with her.  Does it make me a bad mom because I can’t say that I know I would persevere for the sake of Nathaniel and Rachael?  Maybe. I wish I could do better. I have seen the struggles of the friends who have buried their children this year and it has echoed inside of me, brought back that grief buried inside me.  Grief I didn’t know how to deal with then and don’t know how to deal with now.

Now that grief transfers into fear for Peyton. The incredible, unstoppable Peyton.  A baby that captivated me from the first moment our eyes met, whose tiny lips exhaled angel’s breath into my heart. The Peyton that twirls in frilly skirts, begs for perfume to be spritzed on her wrist, who hugs with her whole body and reaches out her hand in her sleep to hold mine.  This little girl who lives life with an infectious giggle and a smile that lights up a room, who leaves laughter in her wake and wraps hearts around her pudgy little fingers.  Can I live without her? Without that?

I don’t know.

I pray I never have to find out.

I need $500!

Ok, really? Does anyone not agree with that sentence?  Could you not use a toasty $500 in your pocket at any given point in time?  I’m already thinking of the school supplies and back-to-school swag I could purchase with that cash.

5 Minutes for Mom is running a Summer Fun Photo Contest with a $500 prize and I’m hunting through all the pictures I have of my kids…which YIKES! rolls into the tens of thousands I think…and pick the one that best exemplifies summer in our house.

I’m going to post a few here and if you could let me know which one you think is the best, that would be great and then I’ll submit it.

I trust you all, you’d never steer me wrong.

Nathaniel #1

Nathaniel #2

Peyton #1 (FYI, this was the last picture I ever took of her pre-diagnosis)

Peyton #2

Rachael #1

Rachael #2

Ok, how can I not??  These kids are the reason I smile, love and breathe.  They are the best parts of me and Peter wrapped up in fresh promises and inumeral possibilies. They embody all our hopes and dreams.

We have such a busy weekend and upcoming week with these kids. Peter has been here for 2 weeks and will be heading back to Alabama on Sunday.  We have to sqeeze in a lot of fun time together in the next day.

Peyton has to go to clinic for chemo in her port on Wednesday and then she starts her monthly dose of steroids….seems like we just finished, no?  But with each round of meds, another month of chemo is behind us with remission firmly in our grasp.  We pray that it stays that way.

We have so many friends in need of those same gifts….health, healing, hope….Justin Gaudineer, Justen Jones, Brooke Martin, Connor Hernandez.  I also ask for prayers to surround our many friends grieving for the precious children lost to this disease…the Keslers, the Potterbaums, the Gunns, the Gliddons, the Reicherts, the Deals, the list goes on and on.