Hope4Peyton

I was speechless today. No, not shocked or awed…actually verbally-challenged. Peyton and I are suffering through a monster case of the crud, sore throat, coughing, sneezing, congestion and all sorts of other fun cold-like festivities. And I lost my voice.

Lost my voice, croaking like a rabid frog, it was awful.

My kids were joyful! I must have stood there for 6 minutes, yelling at them to hurry up and get a move on and they strolled around in complete oblivian….

”Did you hear that??”
“No, it must have been the wind.”
“Hmm, notice that lovely shade of red mom’s turning?”
“Wonder when she took up the art of Mime?”

I was browsing through a magazine and sneezed into it….Peyton looks at it and says “Mom, did you just snot in that book?” Yes, I did. “Mommy, that’s naaaasty!” Yes, it is, sweetheart, yes it is.

Peyton had her clinic visit this morning, getting her port accessed and her Vincristine push. We came home with our monthly prescriptions of 6MP, Methotrexate and Decadron (the steroid). She did well at the clinic, but we weren’t able to participate in the music class because of her obvious symptoms. We even stood outside the door for a moment and peeked through the window, and she was so disappointed that she couldn’t go play and sing. Unfortunately, because we’re both sick we don’t get to go to Little Tales tomorrow. It’s going to be a very dark day. It’s one of the wonderful things about the CCC. We know that everyone’s aware of the immunity issues so no one brings a sick child and endangers everyone else, but it stinks when you’re the one at home with the child who’s moping because she can’t play.

Peyton dressed and prepped for dance class….can you imagine that face when she got the big fat NO?

So, instead we’re going to go to the grocery store and stock up on our steroid staples: eggs, A-1, black olives, eggs, strawberries, eggs….maybe while we’re in Atlanta we can look into raising our own chickens.

There is so much in process with this whole moving thing.

Thank you so much to all the friends who have told us how missed we will be. It makes it harder to leave, but it also lets me know that we have the kinds of friendships that will endure through the miles. I get a little teary when I think about the actual goodbyes, but I’m also excited about what the future holds.

So many things are falling into place and the list of things to do just seems to get longer and longer. Our real hope is that everything will come together so that we can all be in a house together in Atlanta by January, but we also understand that there may be obstacles to that goal and we have to plan for the big family move after school lets out. I don’t know if there really is any one better way of doing it, but I just know in my head how I’d like it to work out. My head is the launching pad….does that scare you as much as it scares me?

Planning out the move, packing, finding a place to live in GA, getting everything ready to make the medical transition, the school transition and the work transition is just overwhelming. I really detest moving.

Please pray for the Lord to just provide the patience, the energy and the understanding we’re going to need to get through these next months.

f.r.o.G….fully relying on God

ps….Rob, owner of Dynamic Painting and a participant of the Angels Among Us program through the Brandon Foundation came out this week and just worked his butt off! He got the old deck tore up and the new one in place in 3 days and it looks fantastic. Thank you so much to Rob, Liz and Natalie for all your help and love.

I have been a slacker. I have not updated as I should. The problem lies in the fact that the thing I wanted most to tell all of you was not general public knowledge just yet.

But now I just can’t stand it anymore and it’s all about to come out of me NOW!

About 3 weeks ago, Peter got a call from a friend he’s worked with at Verizon. Brad had moved to take a job in Georgia and he wanted to offer Peter a position. Now, Peter has a rambling heart, he’s wanted to move for years….he would have been a great military husband, moving every couple of years…but I am a homebody. I like it where I am and I want to stay here.

There have been many “Hey, what about placeXYZ???”

“No.”

“But they have (insert attraction/neat-o-wowie-cool-thing) here!”

“Yeah…no.”

It pretty much just went in this basic conversation path every time.

Then this offer came up. We had just had this long talk about moving. I told Pete to just trust that when the time was right, when the job was right, when the move was RIGHT, the doors would open and there would be no doubt in our hearts.

Big mouth.

Not a week after the “right” conversation, the phone call and the job offer came up. It is a fantastic opportunity, it’s the perfect fit job for Pete, it’s all Christmas and birthday wrapped up in one big ball of joy….but it’s in Atlanta.

Whooooaaaa, Nelly.

Atlanta?? Why would we want to move to Atlanta? We live here — that’s an actual quote from me…I have a real knack for stating the obvious when there is no other rational argument.

But Brad told Pete to take his time, weigh his options, consider all the possibilities and he would hold the position as long as it took us to make a decision. Wow! Ok, let’s start weighing those options.

Lots of friends, family and support – no support system
Great insurance – who knows?
A hospital and staff that we love – some top 3 rated pediatric oncology group in the county
We have a house here – oh wait, we can buy a much bigger, nicer house there for less money?

Wait…which side am I arguing here?

What we found was that as we really did weigh all our options, we were feeling more and more compelled that maybe this WAS the right time and right move.

Then God kicked in and said “Let me show you what I can do!”

I have to make a list there’s so many awesome things that have happened.

1. The insurance thing was figured out when we found out that Verizon is lowering the coverage plan and that meant that the option between what we would have and what the new company was offering was pretty much a moot point.

2. We made a mad dash trip up there to check out the hospital and, although it isn’t our amazing doctors and nurses, there was nothing that could be complained about. In fact, it was the most tremendous clinic I’ve ever even thought about…it blew our socks off.

3. The house…well, if we make the move, pray that it sell…but there are some awesome houses available to us up there.

4. Now check this out…this is when it almost borders on creepy cool. I have been talking to Alayna in TX. Her son has cancer and we’ve built an email friendship over the past few months. When I had mentioned this upcoming decision, she says “Well, I just happen to have this cousin who live in Atlanta and she has a daughter who was treated for cancer up there, she would be able to share all kinds of information.” Well, cool! So I email D.D. and I get back a wonderful, mile long email about the hospitals, the doctors, the support system, how involved she is in both the family side and the research funding side of pediatric cancer in Atlanta. That’s sweet, she sounds a lot like me! Awesome. So there we are, standing in the clinic in Atlanta, we know no one and no one knows us, we’ve just finished up our tour of the facility and I hear this voice say “Anissa?” It’s D.D.!!! They just happened to be at the clinic that day, running late for their appointment and she recognized me from one visit to Peyton’s site. A five minute difference in timing and we would have left and they wouldn’t have been there and just WOW! If that’s not a God thing, I don’t know what is. She and her husband Todd were able to talk to us at length about the area and share so much encouragement about moving there.

5. Then!! Then!! Oh yes, my friends, there’s more. The director that Peter had spoken to at the new job mentioned two areas to check out that would be great for us to look into if a decision to move was made. Peachtree City and Newnan. Great, so we hit the internet, as that is our only source of information…if we can’t Google it, then it don’t exist! And we start checking out the Newnan area. I get an email from this lady named Julie, It’s just a sweet comment left to tell us that she’d been following Peyton’s site and that she’d been praying for us. I emailed her a thank you and when she wrote me back…hold on to your pants!…she wrote “There are many prayers for you coming from NEWNAN, GEORGIA. Ok, are you kidding me?? A random person just decides to email me from Newnan, Georgia the day that we are told to start looking for homes there?? She wants to have us over for dinner! How cool is that?

6. My comment was “Life was so much easier when God just set a bush on fire when he wanted you to go somewhere.” On our drive to Atlanta, there was a Chevy Lumina absolutely AFLAME on the side of the road. Ok, maybe not exactly a burning bush, but it’s the 21st century, maybe a burning car is the equivalent. Maybe I’m reaching a bit on that one.

7. One of the sweetest things was when we were on the road on our way up to look at Atlanta, we got the nighttime call from the kids who were bunking up with Grandma while we drank 84 oz Big Gulp size coffees and tried to stay awake through a midnight drive. We had just been talking about whether to move away from all our support and wonderful friends here was the right choice at this point in our lives. Rachael says, “Do you want me to recite my Bible verse for you?” Of course, we say yes, we have the phone on speaker so we can both hear her. “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. Genesis 28:15. Was that good?” Seriously? My own daughter is verbally giving us God’s assurance that no matter where we are, He’s going to provide the support we need. It’s like God uses Verizon “Can you hear me now??”

So, there are still things to finalize, it’s not definite until all paperwork is done, all the T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted, but we are praying for our lives to be led in the right direction. We are excited at the idea of all that could happen for us in Atlanta, and we are also sad to think of all the wonderful things we would be leaving behind. We are scared to think of the possibility that Peyton could take a turn for the worse and we would be without our friends and amazing support system here, but we also know that we can’t let our decisions be made by fear. We are hesitant to leave behind the Children’s Cancer Center and all that wonderful people we’ve been blessed to know and have in our lives, and then the hint is dropped that a CCC is in Atlanta’s future…maybe we’re being placed there ahead of time to be ready when it is.

The kids are taking the moving idea remarkably well. Rachael is ready to pack up a bag right now and hit the road, Peyton is unsure of what to make of it (although she’s expressed she’s not going if there’s no Cancer Center and our nurses aren’t going to be there), and Nathaniel has been very emotional about the whole thing. Please keep the kids in prayer, they have been through so much in the past couple of years with my being so sick, Peyton’s cancer, it’s just been turmoil after turmoil. I know this transition will be hard, but I also see great things in our future and I pray that they are able to embrace the possibilities of it all.

Please pray that if this is where we are meant to be that the final cogs will fall into place and we will be able to just celebrate the decision.

Thursday we went to the hockey game, we got to see so many wonderful friends and share in a fantastic night. We are so appreciative of these events, not because of the hockey game (although it ROCKED!! Two spectacular fights AND we won!! Whooooo hooo) but because of the time we get to spend with phenomenal people. Just a huge thank you to Brad Richards, #19 and the big playmaker of the night and an all around awesome guy with a huge heart, and to Kasey Dowd who spends so much time sharing the wealth of her compassion and her tremendous self with all of us families.

Kasey Dowd and Kay Bertoch, two awesome ladies!

Peyton in her Lightning glory

Cody and his fan club

Peyton and Lindsay

Peyton, Lindsay and Erin – a living example of our greatest hopes, she’s a Leukemia survivor, 3 years out of treatment!

Peyton and Kay, it was just a lovefest all night long

Dana Bertoch, Lymphoma survivor and Matt (on the left) a Neuroblastoma patient and his buddies…or as her mom Kay and I liked to giggle, Dana and her harem!

This is Juan, the child we’ve been sponsoring for a dollar a day…ok, so no, seriously, this is the ever awesome Brad Richards #19!!! The reason Rachael has that look on her face is because each table set up in the room has a HUGE bottle of Tabasco sauce on it….Kasey got a great laugh out of Rachael’s horror at that find.

Brad making lots of kids VERY happy!

Peyton and Kasey, is there any doubt how much this lady loves the kids and how much they love her?

The weekend has been spent with friends from Daytona who came over to stay for a few days. 6 kids, 4 adults, 2 dogs and a great time for all!

f.r.o.G….fully relying on God
—Anissa

I just want to let all of you know that I am fine. The surgery to reattach my fingers went extraordinarily well and the doctor says that I should have full use of them in time…..I should be back to posting just fine.

When I go a few days without an update, it’s always sweet to see the immediate concern of our friends. The first assumption is that Peyton isn’t well…which she is…then, something is wrong with Nathaniel or Rachael…which there isn’t…or the world has come a cataclysmic end bringing the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse bearing down on our front door….which at the last check, it hadn’t.

I love the people who come to Peyton’s website. The people who contact us usually say something like “I really feel like I know you” and in a very real way, you all do. Probably because this website has gone far beyond its intended use. It was supposed to be a way to update friends and family on Peyton’s health and how the cancer treatment was progressing. But it just became this way to share that cancer really isn’t what our lives are all about. I guess it goes with the saying “We have cancer, cancer doesn’t have us”….(ooohh, I see a t-shirt logo coming out of that one)..and we never dreamed that people who didn’t know us would possibly care. Even those who have never met us, have never said a spoken word to us, have never even left a message to us…you have become such a huge part of our lives! And we appreciate your constant support, encouragement and prayers.

The reason that I haven’t been posting over the past couple of days is because Pete and I have been out of town. I can’t really share with on here why just yet, but it’s not a bad thing and I will the nanosecond I’m able to. We have huge decisions facing us and for Peter the process of making big decisions is about the same as passing a kidney stone…long, slow and painful.

There is so many wonderful things to tell you, amazing God things that have happened in the last week. I can’t wait to be able to write them all down and let you all see how the Lord has been working in our lives. Soon.

How is that for a teaser?? Ha!

We have a big night ahead of fun ahead of us. We got the invitation to go to the Tampa Bay Lightning game and we are headed over the forum tonight to enjoy the hockey game in a manner that has ruined us for any sporting event ever. Brad Richards (great hockey player, wonderfully compassionate guy) has a suite at the Forum that he has macked out for the families with cancer kids to enjoy the games in style. It’s decorated to the max, it has a big screen tv with a PS3, they cater in tons of food and drinks, they just go out of their way to make the event as awesome as they can. Kasey Dowd is the director of Brad’s Foundation and she bend over backwards to make each family feels special. Kasey and Brad are so wonderful and they have been a huge blessing in our lives.

The only downside of these great experiences is that our kids have been spoiled beyond belief. A few weeks ago tickets were donated for another game, but they were 3rd row seats, not in the suite. When I asked the kids if they wanted to go, Rachael asked “Are they suite tickets?” I explained that they were just regular tickets and she crinkled up her little nose and said “Nah.” My little ones, you are in for a huge reality check that nose bleed seats are what your future holds!

f.r.o.G….fully relying on God
—Anissa

Check out new stuff at the Pootique!

I will confess that I was not a perfect child.

I know! Gasp and shock, right??

But I wasn’t. There was the time I nearly gave my mother an aneurysm when I decided to adopt a barn rat as my household pet…that incident with setting the upstairs trashcan on fire…I admit being involved in a plot to lock my fresh-from-the-shower sister out of the house….in the dead of winter. Oh the list just goes on and on.

But I am being paid back in a big way.

Peyton and Rachael have joined a gang. That’s truly the only way I can explain their sudden affinity for graffiti. Between coloring on furniture, marking up walls, trying to daw on each other, and the Crayola-marker-tattoos in which they find so much joy, my girls had better be artists when they grow up so that I can someday say “Oh, I knew all along they would be great artists, they started at such a young age”. Otherwise, if they’re accountants they have no excuse for their overwhelming creative outbursts.

For those who don’t know, I’ll give you a little background on this next segment of the “Tabasco Fiasco”. A few weeks ago, Rachael was involved in a master manipulation that ended up with her lying and tricking her dad and she was punished with a drop of Tabasco sauce on her tongue. We believed it was a highly successful manner of punishment as she would turn pale and grab her lips if I threatened to go get the hot sauce. Hot sauce is a weapon of mass destruction as far as my kids are concerned.

So, the above artwork is currently being displayed on the back of the door in my girls’ bedroom. Rachael comes and gets me and announces “Peyton DREW on the door!” I go back, I look, I roll my eyes because nothing involving a surface and a marker really raises my blood pressure anymore and we move on. But Peyton announces that Rachael “helped her”….Rachael, did you do this?….NO! It was all Peyton’s doing.

Now, if it weren’t for my nearly psychotic need to document every moment of my children’s lives by camera, the next few minutes of our lives wouldn’t have happened. I went back into the bedroom with the camera and I shot a few pictures. That’s when I went all CSI on them! What I noticed with further inspection was that while most of the drawing and writing was definitely Peyton’s style, there was one part of it that stood out. See, Peyton doesn’t know her lower case letters yet….and she NEVER misspells her own name…and look at the top right hand corner of the picture….in lower case letters is the name “Peton”. Now the only letter that really sticks out is the “e”, but when I asked Peyton what letter it was, she couldn’t even identify it…aaah haaa!….Rachael has struck again.

I am a genius.

After grilling Rachael and getting the confession, I did this generation’s equivalent of telling her to go out and cut me a switch with which to be beaten. I told her to go to the fridge and bring me the Tabasco sauce.

Now, I’m a little ashamed by this next part, but really, you have to be there.

I’m standing in the kitchen with a drop…a tiny drop….a miniscule drop…on the end of a knife. The drop is to be administered directly to the tongue. But Rachael looks like a lizard because every time I make a move to put it on her tongue, she keeps pulling it back in and grabbing her mouth. She begs me to let her do it. Oh no, I want the privilege. But after several minutes of her crying, screaming and holding her lips…mind you, NOTHING has actually been done to the child, this is all just anticipatory agony…I crack up! Yes, I start laughing. I couldn’t help it, she was hysterically jumping up and down and grabbing her face with her tongue constantly in and out of her mouth.

I finally go the sauce on her tongue and she didn’t even freak out! She just asks for a glass of milk and then I gave her a pickle to eat to take away the sting. Fun fun fun!

But beyond the Tabasco Fiasco, we’ve had a fun weekend.

The very sweet Maddie Bridges

Saturday I left Peter and his dad (who is staying with us for the week) with all three kids and went over to Brandy and Jeff Fishman’s house. They’ve sacrificed their garage for two weeks while stuff was dumped off for the yard sale we had there on Saturday. I got there 5 AM-ish to help set up and we sold stuff all day long to raise money for Maddie Bridges. She has a particularly aggressive form of cancer called Rhabdomyosarcoma and her family will be leaving for 6 weeks so that she can get a proton radiation treatment in Jacksonville. The garage sale raised almost 0 dollars to help her family with some expenses during their trip! Many of the families of the Children’s Cancer Center stopped by throughout the day to help out and it’s just awesome to see our families work together to help another family. They are just so good that way.

After that was all said and done, cleaned up and packed away to donate somewhere else, I headed home. I sacked out for a 30 minute nap and then was up and running for the evening’s festivities.

The kids were dropped off at a friend’s house for the night, I headed out to meet some of the fellow moms for a mom’s night out and Peter and his dad journeyed over to Dr. John’s for a dad’s night in.

Dr. John is a board member of the Children’s Cancer Center, and he opens his house up to host the dads in for a fun night in the “Man Cave”….that’s what he calls his den and rightly so. It’s about 1500 sq feet (the same size as my entire house) full of manly distractions…pool table, foosball table, air hockey, a ginormous wide screen plasma TV, every fun thing imaginable if you’re pumped full of testosterone. Then they bring in mass amounts of food, a poker dealer and the fun begins. Peter and his dad had a great time, apparently Pete’s dad is quite the card shark.

I met up with several of the moms for a night of food, gabbing, laughing, singing (don’t ask, I won’t force you to experience it) and dancing. It really is so wonderful to spend time with these women, we share such a strong bond and it’s like a sorority we never wanted to join, but since we’re here, we make the absolute best of it. We had such a fun time!

Today we headed to a fall festival put on by the Children’s Cancer Center and the Jr. League of Tampa. The kids got to preview their Halloween costumes, Nathaniel is Darth Vader, Rachael is Super Girl, and Peyton is the most glamorous mermaid ever. We ate, we spent time with our fellow cancer families and the kids had a blast playing and sweating.

(Doesn’t that twinkle in her eyes just worry you the littlest bit?)

Another busy week approaches. I really sort of thought that our lives would be boring and solitary when our daughter was diagnosed with cancer. I mean, who wants to hang with a cancer family?? But luckily, we are so blessed to be constantly involved in something and we’ve benefited so greatly from the wonderful support community Tampa has.

Monday the Brandon Foundation is sending out a wonderful company in their Angels program who are going to be doing demo on our deck in the back yard. A huge pile of lumber was dropped off to our driveway on Friday and when they’ve pulled up all the old yuck wood, they’ll be putting the new stuff down. Whoooo hooooo!!! I’m excited for the kids to be able to actually play on the deck again, as now it is a danger hazard. Later in the week they are also going to be replacing the dishwasher that died shortly after Peyton was diagnosed. We just haven’t really had the time or energy to deal with the dishwasher, so they’re taking care of it for us. We are so thankful for the true compassion that we’ve had the joy of seeing. A new deck is great, not having to hand wash our dishes is sooo cool, but I really think the best thing is just knowing that people have the tremendous hearts to want to help us in a time of need.

I’ve said it before and I truly believe that there are just some blessings that God can deliver only by suffering through the hard times. You recognize them and appreciate them more than you could have any other way.

f.r.o.G….fully relying on God

ps….with the pile of wood in our front yard, I really wanted Peter to go out in his bathrobe and pull a “Peter Almighty” and tell our neighbors that he is going to build an ark.

Peyton and I got discharged a whole day early from the hospital, so we made it home early this afternoon. I can honestly tell you this was one of the most unique visit to the hospital I’ve had….for a number of reasons.

Our roommate was a sweet 15 year old girl who liked to talk LOUDLY on the phone all night long and fall asleep to the TV on full volume. Truly the new hospital with private suites for the oncology floor could not possibly come fast enough.

The hospital has put in new beds. These beds are movement sensitive, which means when you lay on it, the mattress shifts to accommodate your body. It is one of the freakiest sensations. Every time we’d roll over, the bed would wiggle under us…it felt like I was sleeping in a bowl of Jell-o pudding. I can’t sleep when Peyton needs me to cuddle, I’ve been known to react violently when Pete’s icy cold foot of death wanders into MY sleeping domain in the night, and I’m supposed to get a good night’s rest on a bed that feels like it’s alive? I’m more likely to win “America’s Next Top Model”.

But the winner…the grand prize….the “Are you kidding me?” trophy goes to our roommate’s mom. Mama is fervently searching for love in all the wrong places. I had to listen to her answer personal ads on the phone for well over two hours….at 11 o’clock at night! So, if you’re a single man looking for “someone who loves the water, is independent and secure in her job, likes to dance, enjoys movies and fine wine (I’m assuming that’s the kind that doesn’t come with a screw off top), and is looking for a person to be a ‘love mate’ “ PLEASE call this woman…please please please call this woman. I seriously considered calling her myself just so she’d let me go to sleep!

Peyton’s feeling much better. Her counts remained good and her fevers went away after the first night…of course they did…and she got some much needed rest, at least one of us did. She still has a runny nose and some mild cold symptoms, but other than that she’s back up to speed.

I do have some serious concerns about her head though. She’s showing definite signs of swelling. The child has heard “We saw you on TV” and “We saw your picture in the paper” so much she’s in serious danger of her head popping like a birthday balloon.

f.r.o.G…fully relying on God
—Anissa