Prayers all around

Peyton has had a very rough day today. Her school called me early to pick her up as she’d had a crying fit and wasn’t feeling well. I picked her up and she fell immediately asleep and was grumpy and moody the rest of the night. She complained that her leg hurt and that her back was achy, and she was very emotional. She’d only had 1 dose of her steroids, so I’d say that wasn’t it, but some months she breezes through them and some months all I have to do is open the bottle in the house and she has a nervous breakdown. They did up her chemo dose yesterday, she is a growing girl, this is the second increase they’ve made. But I don’t think that it would’ve had a chance to have a real effect yet. I guess that occasionally I get used to her always being bouncy and positive and it’s easy to bypass the thought that she IS full of chemo, and she will feel those effects. By bedtime she was just miserable and exhausted, I guess if she’s not feeling better she’ll probably stay home from school tomorrow.

Sometimes for me, this cancer life is about perspective. A few aches and pains make me sad for Peyton because she shouldn’t have to deal with cancer in her life, but thankfully her treatment has remained successful and her cancer is in remission. In the face of those who’ve relapsed and especially those who’ve passed, we’ll take those discomforts and side effects because they are reaffirming that she is alive to have them.

We got the devastating word that our sweet friend Mathew Gliddon has had a second relapse. His remission did not last long enough for him to be eligible for his bone marrow transplant, so all plans are on hold until treatment options are set in place. This news is so awful and while, as his friends, we are heartbroken for him and his family, we can only begin to imagine the pain and sorrow they are experiencing. This second relapse leaves him with questionable amounts of treatment options and we ask everyone to pray that his body will respond to whatever chemotherapy treatments they are able to decide on for him. He has to attain remission and maintain it for 30 days before they will begin the bone marrow transplant process, so our prayers are greatly needed. Please help us pray his family through this emotional time.

f.r.o.G…fully relying on God
–Anissa

This article was done in the fall. I happened to be talking to someone at Cracker Barrel when a woman approached me, having overheard me talking. She ended up being a reporter for a paper called the Asian American Times in Arizona, and this is the article she wrote up of Peyton. It’s very sweet and done nicely. She does misname the hospital, but everything else is good.

Asian American Times Article

Page 23

And don’t be scared, I was freaked out thinking that it was all in Korean…um, I’m not going to be able to read this! Are you kidding me? But the article is in ENGLISH!! Yeah!!