More ups and downs than a teeter-totter!

If you ever have the chance to plant flowers with your children, please take this piece of advice….make sure you plant the same seeds with each child. When one child’s flower pot sprouts little green leaves and the other child’s still has “just dirt! Just stupid dirt!” it’s not a pretty scene.

The kids go back to school on today, YEAHHHH!!! I have to say that we had a great spring break, we didn’t do much, but we had a lot of fun. We spent lots of time in the sun, at the pool and hanging out with friends. It was the relaxing week we needed.

Monday morning, Peyton ha a clinic visit where she got Methotrexate and Vincristine in her port. It was a nice and easy visit, her tummy hurt for a while after the visit, but she took a nice long nap and woke up feeling better. She’s been eating really well, we think she’s having a bit of a growth spurt. She’s definitely grown in the past few months and looking back over pictures of her before she got sick, she has just changed so much in the past 9 months. Going from 2 ½ to 3 really has been a difference, not just the hair and the weight and all the changes rendered by the medication, it’s just her growing out of her baby phase.

I was disappointed with her numbers today. When we went in on the 14th to start her chemo cycle we’d had to wait an extraordinarily long amount of time for her counts to rebound so that we could start. We were starting to get alarmed when they did finally come up and we were able to start Interim Maintenance. One the 14th her counts were phenomenal, her ANC was over 2600 and her platelet count was 240,000. Today when we went in all her numbers had really taken a dive. Her ANC was down to 600 and her platelets had dropped to 60,000. It seemed extreme to me and I talked to Dr. Ayala about the sudden plummet in counts. She did get a lot of chemo on the 14th and 16th, but it was still a fairly extreme drop. She did have the virus that she was hospitalized working out of her system as well. We also talked about the fact that after 9 months of chemo, her body may be unable to rebound as fast as it used to be. I hope that all these things combined are what’s happening and am praying that her body soon catches up.

I also got the news that we will be getting started arranging for her cranial radiation. It’s still about 3 months down the road, she has to complete Delayed Intensification first, but there is a fair amount of time spent organizing everything. Apparently we have to do trial run-throughs and those kinds of things. The great news is that we will have the option to do her radiation at St. Joe’s which is so much closer than All Children’s Hospital. Daily trip to All Children’s in St. Pete was going to mean either an 80+ miles a day back and forth for a few minutes of radiation, or staying at the Ronald McDonald house so that we don’t have to travel. So, St. Joes sounds like a great option to me.

There was one other bit of news that gave me a moment’s disappointment. I had thought that she would be finishing maintenance and all of her treatment would be done sometime in the fall of 2008. It was explained that she would have two full years of maintenance after she finishes Delayed Intensification 2, so it’ll be summer of 2009 before she’s completely finished. It seems like such a long time, but as long as she’s cancer-free, what’s a few more months? I think when the time actually comes to stop her treatment it’ll be scary for me. I just pray for strength of faith to trust God 100% in his plans for our family and for Peyton.

She was too funny at the clinic today. I guess 9 months of clinic time has pretty much given her the seal of expertise. When our nurse Cindy went to hook up her IV tube Peyton grabbed the tube and told her, “Hey, Cindy, you almost pulled out my port!” We all started laughing because Cindy’s been doing this for a long time and knows her stuff, but Peyton knows what she knows too.

I have to tell you that I’m a little miffed because Peyton and I go to the hospital for 5 days and what famous people come to visit? No one! Angela and Adelaine goes in and who visits them? Ace Young from American Idol and the United States Navy Baseball team….fair? I don’t think so. The funny thing is that Angela greeted everyone in her pajamas! Nothing like meeting the rich and famous in your pj’s….that’s how we roll.

We got a gift from the Giving Hope Through Faith Foundation today. They sent us some wonderful gift cards from Wal-mart and Blockbuster and also shared some verses that were uplifting and amazingly appropriate. One that really stuck out and spoke to my heart was Philippians 4:6-7 “Don’t worry about anything, instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all he has done. If you do this, you will experience god’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” They have added a special link to Peyton’s story and is spreading her story and the stories of other cancer kids. The Tucker family continues to do amazing things in honor of their son Zackary who lost his battle with a brain tumor.

We continue to have a great response to our Relay for Life efforts. I am in the middle of searching out donations for our auction and as prizes for our karaoke contest that we’ll have the day of the Relay. We are also looking for lots of baked goods and homemade goodies to use for our Bake Walk! If you still want to sponsor a member of our family (we are all listed as participants and you can sponsor any one of the kids too), go to the Team Peyton website.

f.r.o.G…fully relying on God
—-Anissa