Hope4Peyton

A couple of pictures from Saturday night’s Evening of Hope with the Brandon Foundation.

Friday night we enjoyed another hockey game with some of our fantastic cancer friends from the Children’s Cancer Center. I can honestly say that I never wanted cancer, I wish every day that it was gone from our lives and that we could forget it ever happened. However, it happened, it’s a part of us and we are so blessed to have met amazing friends, been involved in tremendous events and have had our lives changed forever for the better.

With Thanksgiving around the corner, people are encouraged to make these grand sweeping lists of what they’re thankful for. What some don’t realize is that when you’re touched by disease, when life truly becomes a precious gift, you don’t have to wait until Thanksgiving to really understand what to be thankful for. It comes down to this: We are thankful for the good because we can never have enough good moments in life and we are thankful for the bad because it means we are still here. God has shown us over the past 16 months that through the bad you can find the greatest joy. Maybe because it breaks you down that you can really appreciate what’s important. All of a sudden the things that were so important become trivial and happiness becomes the simple. Who cares if you don’t have the nicest house, the newest car, the up and coming techno-gadget…these things become so inconsequential in the face of knowing that just breathing, loving and God’s greatness is the ultimate gift.

Speaking of thankfulness, I was sitting on the floor of the garage, sorting out my 500 lbs of laundry and it hit me that most people wouldn’t consider doing laundry a reason to be thankful. Well, those folks haven’t had the joy of turning the knob on their washer and NOTHING happening! When our washing machine died it was a sad day, and it was just one of those things that felt monumental and overwhelming. I mean, this sort of define my job…I do laundry, lots and lots of laundry…it might be something in my Asian genes, but laundry is very important to me! <—- ok that might have been totally un-PC, but I couldn’t help it.

The Brandon Foundation swooped into our lives and unleashed a barrage of blessings on us that started with our washing machine getting fixed, our AC getting worked on and ended with a beautiful new deck in our back yard. Ok…yeah….WOW! We went to the Evening of Hope fundraiser benefiting the Brandon Foundation tonight and had the chance to see what happens when a community gets involved and allows every person the opportunity to make a difference. It was just phenomenal to see friends there, to be reunited with the compassionate business owners that came to our rescue, to be able to give them a little bit of thanks for the way they affected us.

Can I just share with you that I totally enabled Peyton’s butter eating tendancies tonight? I’ve never encouraged it and was mildly repulsed when I found out she was doing it, but when I was sitting there with my piece of cheesecake and she pointed to the little cup of butter with that look on her face….well, could a pat of butter really be any worse than the 4000 calories of cream cheese I was about to ingest?? Yeah, I think not. Soooo, I totally handed that ball of butter over and watched her stick her finger in it. The look of bliss on her face was priceless, I can only hope I enjoy winning the lottery with so much joy!

Peyton has also become completely spoiled to expect a gift or goodie whenever we go to one of these things. There was a bag at our seats when we made our way in for dinner and she was all “open it, open it, open it!” Fully expecting a ball of gold or an entire family of playdough producing fairies to pop out of it, she was a little disappointed to find stuff like coffee mugs and pens in it. She finally snatched the bag out of my hands and shoved her arm in all the way to her armpit. For a few seconds, all you could hear was the crinkling of tissue paper and her sad desperation to find a toy in that bag. Alas, no….no toy….she threw the bag on the floor as if to say “This whole event is obviously crap if they can’t even get me a freaking polly pocket!”

Then Rachael picks up the bag and notices the closest thing to a toy….the shiny silver pen.

“Hey, look! A pen.”

Peyton made this Herculean leap for it and yells “It’s mine!”

In other words, it’s complete crap unless someone else wants it and then it might as well be diamonds.

f.r.o.G….fully relying on God
–Anissa

Jennifer Rivera has a restaurant near Kansas City and I’ve posted about the fundraiser she’s having. She’s decorating ornaments to decorate with tags in honor of cancer kids and she’s going to sell them at a Holiday Shopping Bazaar on Dec 1st to benefit the Pediatric Cancer Foundation. She’ll be donating 100% of the ornament sales plus 10% of all additional vendor sales to the PCF!! (Sorry, I got that confused the first time around)

Can I just tell you that I’ve never met Jennifer. We’ve never even talked on the phone. But she’s an awesome lady and seeing how she’s been driven to do something is remarkable. Her children are healthy, she could easily go home at the end of the day and forget that there are kids out there that aren’t as blessed. But her heart is so big that she reaches out to make a difference.

Thank you, Jennifer, for your dedication and compassion!!!

f.r.o.G…fully relying on God

ps…If you’d like your cancer child to be a part of this fundraiser or would like to purchase an ornament, please email Jennifer at [url=mailto:JRivera@kc.rr.com]JRivera@kc.rr.com[/url]. She has lots of ornaments and wants to be able to represent these kids in a special way.

Today we take a deep breath and start planning for another insanely busy weekend, which winds straight into a packed week.

Tonight we went to the Children’s Cancer Center for our Family Night meeting. Because it was our holiday meeting we enjoyed a fantastic meal of turkey, dressing and all that good stuff that plays along. In fact, the meal was so good that I really felt that we should have been slunked down on a couch somewhere, watching football and dozing in a puddle of drool. Tryptophan rocks! We had the chance to see our wonderful friends as well as meet some new families. Sadly to say, there are more new families all the time and it’s a chance for us to reach out and get to know them and share some of the encouragement that has gotten us through. Two of the families have daughters Peyton’s age and are diagnosed with ALL Leukemia, so we are able to connect with them in a unique way. Peyton spent the better part of the night playing with Presley and showing her the ropes of the Center. It was pretty neat to watch her interact with a new child in a “hey, let me show you this, and explain that, and let’s do this” kind of way. It feels like we’re teaching her something awesome about helping others.

What a weekend we have. Last weekend was the Fisherman’s Ball and the Blue and White. This weekend we have a night at a hockey game where Tampa really rallies around the cancer community. Every cancer organization reaches out to bring families from all over the area, both pediatric and adult cancers and makes it a really special night. Our sweet friend Nikki Hawkins will be singing the national anthem to start off the game, so that’s an extra special bonus!!

On Saturday Rachael is going off with her friend Alyssa to see a play of Alice in Wonderland. Then we are off that night to the Brandon Foundation Evening of Hope. The Brandon Foundation is the group that has been such a tremendous help to our family this year, they were able to help when our washing machine died, fixed numerous issues around our house and replaced our deck. Whooo hooooo! This is one of their bigger fundraisers to benefit their Angels Among Us program. The AAU program is where they hook up businesses that want to help with families who need it. I can’t wait for the chance to thank so many who have been instrumental in helping us through this ordeal.

Our school is out for the entire week of Thanksgiving as well as the Monday after. Looong break! So, after Peyton’s PT appointment to get fitted for her orthotic foot braces, we are heading out of town for the week. My sister Angela and her family are going to be at my mom’s over in Daytona and we will get to spend a lot of precious time with them. They live in South Carolina so our visits are few and far between and I’m so looking forward to this time with them. I have 4 nieces that I rarely get to see. The move to Atlanta will also be bringing us within a few hours of where they live, so I know that this is going to be a great opportunity to really get to know them and for our kids to actually be a family.

This is a big thing for us, this week away from home. It’ll really be the longest time we’ve spent away from home, we’ve done the occasional weekend thing, but we’re going to be gone for a whole week. I’m trying not to get worried about the “what if” of being so far from our hospital and everything, but the worries still linger. Life seems to get back to some normalcy and then we plan something like this and I realize how hard it is to go on a trip that will take us out of our safety net and I get a little anxious. But it will be fun and I’m going to try to ignore the worries and just enjoy the family time.

OHHHH, I can’t forget this!!

Nathaniel had an adventure tonight at the Center. One of the moms comes to me and leans over and whispers, “Your son has his finger stuck in a chair”.

Excuse me? My son? My 9-year-old-much-too-old-for-this-sort-of-thing son has his what where?

So, I go over to surely disprove this!

Yeah…no….he did. Apparently he’d been sitting there for some time with his finger stuck in a whole in the seat of the plastic seats….all the way to the second knuckle of his finger. I give it a tug. He howls. I pull a little harder, he howls louder.

Oh, it’s in there good. Plus, we have an audience! Those compassionate and caring parents and Center staff are standing there behind me…snickering.

We poured water on his finger and I gave it a good yank.

“Ow! OW! OWWWW!”

“Well, why did you stick it in there in the first place?”

“I don’t know.”

“You stick your finger in a hole in a chair and you don’t know why?”

“No, and then I couldn’t get it out, mom.”

“Obviously.”

It took a large quantity of soap, some heartless ignoring of his pleas to stop yanking on his finger before he finally popped free. His finger was so tightly stuck that the tip had turned purple and I knew I had to get it out of there, even at the expense of yanking it out of socket or breaking it. I know….I’m cruel!

After getting cleaned up, a hug and a check to make sure the finger is A-ok, he says, “Well, I won’t do that again.”

And this is my honor student.

f.r.o.G….fully relying on God
–Anissa

This has been a great month for Peyton-isms, I’ll only share the cream of the crop!

“I’m going to cry for Dana and Ms. Kay when I go to Atlanta. They’ll be sad for me.”

Yes they will, but it does seem a little premature to plan this emotional breakdown, don’t you think?

“My mommy sure can talk a lot.”

This tidbit was shared with the Little Tales director Sarah Edwards when I took too long to finish up a discussion after everyone else had left. She has my natural talent for stating the obvious.

“If you ain’t got no money, take your broke self home!”

This was sang in the kitchen…butt naked…dancing for all she was worth. Take a minute, let that visual sink in.

Rachael spent this afternoon with her Big Buddy from the CCC. Lily Chang came and picked her up and they went to the mall….they got a sweet bear at Build-A-Bear…they ate Chick-fil-A….they went to Claires and bought makeup…they went for ice cream after. This is Rachael’s version of Utopia! Lily is wonderfully sweet and she and Rachael hit if off great. Again, we are so thankful for this opportunity through the Children’s Cancer Center.

While Lily was here Peyton walked in after a day with Grandma. She just stared at Lily for a moment and I told her “This is your new sister, what do you think?” She thought for a moment and then nodded her head like “I guess she’ll do.” Hehehehehe, I think she was a little disappointed to find out it was only Rachael’s Big Buddy.

Peyton fell in love with two special gifts that arrived in the mail. One is a counting card game, in just the two days we’ve played with it, she’s recognizing the numbers better and she begs to play….HA! Sneaky teaching. I love it. And tonight she got a stuffed puppy that comes with “her very own purse to sit in! I wish I had a purse to sit in.” Thank you to our compassionate Chemo Angels, Karalyn and Lisa.

f.r.o.G…fully relying on God
–Anissa