Hope4Peyton

This site has seen my family through many good times and bad in the past.  It’s time to dust it off and re-purpose it a bit.

This is that old comfortable pair of blue jeans you put on when you’ve got some work to do.

And we’ve got some work to do.

So, right now, I’m sitting on my couch, watching the exact same show I watched the first night when Peyton was diagnosed.  I just needed to hear the theme song really.  It’s kind of funny that the same episode is on….”Enterprise:  The Expanse”.  I really should be writing checks to bills that are piling up already and starting to organize my life and figuring out my wife’s “unique” filing system.

Why?

On Tuesday, Anissa suffered a massive stroke.  Then had another one sometime after the first MRI.

I was speechless and in some form of shock (still am) when the ER doctor told me this.  How could this be?  I was chatting with her not an hour ago.  We had both just agreed to give up our Christmas presents so we could stay in a nicer hotel over Thanksgiving while taking care of Anissa’s mom.  We were hoping we could finally give the kids our full attention for the first time in forever.  I was going to look up an old friend who has some pull at Riddle and see about getting a tour of the flight line for them.  Nathaniel’s at that age, and the girls would think it’s cool too.  We were going to grab a bite under the Port Orange bridge in the salty air, maybe even hit the Ocean Deck.

And now there she was with tubes in her mouth and unconscious?

How?

What we know is that she called me around 1:20 pm and said, “Somethings wrong with me.  I’m at a restaurant and just collapsed.  They are calling an ambulance.”  Then she hung up and didn’t respond to any calls.  Those were the last words I heard her say.

Since then it’s been one head doctor after another, some picture taking, grim looks, and waiting.  Lots and lots of waiting.

News of the second stroke was definitely not encouraging.  The first ER doctor said something about 20% survival rate, and he pretty much expected her to go anytime soon.  (Understand that’s what I heard/interpretted…in shock…may not be exactly what he said).  The neurologist just kinda looked at it and mumbled some words that didn’t sound encouraging.  She bled into the PONS area of the brain.  Haven’t had the chance to google that, so I set some friends on it to filter for me…not good news…but playing Dr. Google rarely gives good news.

I really just keep feeling like I’m in a bad dream.  Do these people not realize who they are dealing with?  This is Anissa Mayhew.  The strongest, most amazing woman I’ve ever met.  She’s thirtyfreakinfive and can move mountains with her smile.  She can beat this.

There was some hand squeezing the first evening.  Baby step, but encouraging.

Then came the news of the second bleed.

That’s when I decided to bring the kids up.  If she was going to go, I wanted them to have a chance to see her.  I wanted them to give her a fighting chance and for her to hear and remember in some remote part of that brain exactly who and what she was fighting for.

So, the director of the hospital agreed to let the kids in.  They donned masks and trudged up to her room.  They knew mom was bad and that she hadn’t opened her eyes and had tubes keeping her alive.  They talked a little bit, were afraid a little bit, and sad too.  But God bless my kids.  They are all too familiar with hospital trips.  2 of them have been visiting hospitals for more than half of their lives.  They told her how much they loved her.  They are strong.  They get that from their mom.

About twenty minutes after they left, Anissa started fighting.  A little at first.  But, it’s always darkest before the light.

She started showing signs that she’s in there.  There was more movement on her left side.  Somewhat coordinated turning of the head and reaching with her arm to get the tube out of her mouth.  She opened her eyes briefly.  Thursday, she opened her eyes a fair amount.  There’s no recognition in there yet.  But I believe that will come.  She’s turned her head to acknowledge a different voice.  All of this wears her out quickly, but she’s fighting.  That’s encouraging in itself.

Now what?

Someone is with her around the clock.  The cavalry came up when they first heard the news.  I have gotten MANY questions of how can I help and what do I need.  I hear you all, and appreciate every single offer.  Please understand though, this is a marathon, not a sprint.  IF she comes out of this, it will be a long road to recovery.  Each of you will be able to help over the course of time.  I’ll make sure of it.  Right now, my kids need consistancy and people they know and trust.  That’s addressed.  Anissa and I need the experience of someone who’s been there and done that with regard to the brain.  That’s also addressed.  Lastly, she needs to hear familiar voices.  Check.  People are coming out of the woodwork to offer to help, and it is very much appreciated, but please understand that it may not be now that we need your help.  We’re covered through this week and next I think.  The Tampa Badge Bowl gang has graciously agreed to take care of Thanksgiving dinner.  My job has been absolutely AMAZING on this.  We definitely are surrounded by love.  He’s made sure of that.  I’m going to set up a controlled scheduling site so that people can sign up to help with things.

At this point, mostly what we need is prayer.  To my knowledge, I know of prayer chains in Europe, Africa, and North America.  Several small towns are praying.  Friends old and new, and complete strangers are praying.  That’s exactly what we need now.  Pray for her to make it through one more night with no more bleeding.  Pray for the blood in her head to recede.  Pray for her to come out of this.

Please pray for our family.  `

I’m going to need to lean on you all.  I’m not as strong as she is.

–Peter

Well, it is that day.

The day I move over to the new blog.

I’ll also let you in on a little secret….I slack, therefore I am…usually.

So, check out the other site I’m launching with some of my very best bloggity buds.  It’s cool and funny and I like to think of it as the mothership blog that landed in my backyard and said “take me to your leader” and I was too lazy to send them anywhere else.

Thank you. For everything. For caring and reading and being a part of our lives here.

I hope I see you soon.

XOXOXO

Anissa and the whole Mayhew gang

A friend of mine was telling me about how they equipped their driving-age teenager’s car with a monitoring system…without their knowledge…enabling them to track where she was going and whether or not her car was where she said it was supposed to be WHEN it was supposed to be there.

My inner sixteen-year old said, “WHOOOAAA! That’s a dirty trick and an invasion of my privacy and don’t you trust me?” *insert ear-wrenching amounts of whining*

My outside mom said, “WHOOAAAA! BEST.IDEA.EVER!”

I mean, I want my kids to have some freedom when it comes time for them to start driving, but more importantly, I want their safety and the ability to step in if I see them pulling total douchebag moves like, oh, say, LYING ABOUT WHERE THEY’RE GOING TO BE.

Maybe that’s just me.

I’m getting to participate in what should be both a fun and interesting opportunity while in Chicago at BlogHer.  Ford is taking a group of us to their factory and giving us a tour of their production line, letting us try out some of their new technology and to show us how they’re handling the needs of consumers in quality, fuel efficiency, the environment and technology.

WHAT WOMEN WANT VEHICLE TECH AND QUALITY EVENT….which sounds great, right?  And I really would tell you that what I want in a car is decent gas mileage, enough storage space to haul three kids and all their misc crap, and reliability.

But, after reading some of the upcoming technology they have coming in their 2010 line of cars? Maybe I do want more.

Because you know what I want now? It’s called MyKey.  And for any of you with teenagers driving your car, you may want to LISTEN UP!

This is a safety precaution that’s going to be standard in the 2010 line of Ford vehicles…and it may be one of the best weapons in the war with your teenage driver I have ever heard of.

You, as the owner, can program the MyKey that your teenager *coughor husband*cough* uses…and it limits the vehicle’s top speed and…AND?….the max volume on the radio.

Dude.

Seriously?  I would have hated that as a teenager.

However, having recently known about a car-full of teenagers that died in a wreck caused because they were a) speeding and b) driving like morons….I can’t stop my kids from potentially being idiots while driving, but I will do whatever necessary to teach my kids to respect the fact that they’re driving a gas-filled bomb on wheels.

I could use your help here in telling Ford what women want in a car…what technology would you like to see?….are you more concerned with the effects on the environment?…are you worried about safety and reliability?…tell me what you want in a car and I’ll be taking those answers with me to Ford and letting them know what’s important to all of us.

Thanks!

**and again….I’m not being paid by Ford to tell you about this stuff….they are putting me up in the Chicago Sheraton for an extra night because I have to fly up early and they are feeding me while I’m with them for the event…no payment.**

***which doesn’t mean I’m not totally going to do my best to get them to sponsor me and some friends for a road trip, because WHY NOT?***

***or that I wouldn’t take a free car.  I’m not proud. Tell me you wouldn’t.***

Ok, so I realized that I laid two REALLY heavy posts on you recently and thankyouthankyouthankyou so much for all your wonderful comments and amazing support. I love each and every one of you. You have no idea. NONE.

I have these moments where I sit at the computer completely unprepared to write and then suddenly words just start pouring out of my fingertips, occassionally those have been my favorite posts.

THIS? Is not going to be one of those times.

Because holy canolis have I been the mad crazy busy.

We have been here a month and only one weekend has gone by that we haven’t had overnight guests. We’re setting the trend here, people.  We’ll leave a light on for ya!

I’m trying to get organized because I fly to Chicago next week to make a FOOL of myself with bunches and bunches of my blogger buddies. A fool? Nooo, I can’t believe it you might say.  You *might* say that, right? Ok, so I will admit that no one that has ever actually met me would say that.

I am going to be sharing so much information over the next week about my BlogHer plans and my BlogHer experience and OHTHEPICTURES…they will be coming. I have a whole thing coming up about the awesome companies that are either sending me to BlogHer or dressing me for it.

I know. Dressing me. For real!

For example? **Lane Bryant sent me to pick out a cocktail dress for one of the party nights…and I got this piece of YUM. To wear. Which I will every day for the rest of my natural born life.

There’s a whole Ford thing, HP, Yummie Tummies, and on and on…but gushing about all that’s for a night when I’m not about to drop comatose onto my keyboard.

Because I spend all day working on stuff that I can’t tell you about.

Go ahead, you can call me a nasty tease if you want to.  But I SWEAR it’ll be worth the wait.

Well, maybe not, but I promise there will be cookies, k?

**and for the sake of transparency, because people are all aflutter about naming brands and stuff, Lane Bryant did NOT pay me to write about their clothing. They did offer me a gift card to go and shop at the store and see if I found anything I liked for BlogHer. They’re just really lucky I found THAT dress!**

Today marks three years to the day that Peyton was diagnosed with Leukemia.

Our most craptastic anniversary.

Over the past 36 months, I’ve kept a Bible verse in the header of this site.

It was three years ago TODAY that verse came into my life.

I was curled up in one of those awesomely comfortable hospital chairs *snort*, just looking at Peyton.  All curled up in her large hospital bed, looking small and vulnerable in a way I’d never seen before. I remember tracking all the lines and IV’s that tethered her to the bed…whispering which was antibiotic, which one was fluids, which one was platelets…learning the words, memorizing the order, my mind holding tight to one of the few things I could understand.

Peter had gone home to be with the older two kids, Peyton was firmly in a drug-induced sleep, the room quiet and dark….and I let go.

I had cried off and on all day.

In the house, crumpled on the floor of our bedroom after telling Peter what the pediatrician had said.

In the oncologists office, watching them probe a needle deep into Peyton’s bone and hearing her pained cries.

On a bench outside of the clinic, absorbing the words that confirmed what everyone knew to be true.

Explaining to my family and friends that she had cancer..no, there was no mistake…it was true…I don’t know…I don’t know….I don’t know anything…but she has cancer.

The first night alone in that hospital room, in the kind of quiet that allows you to hear the beeps of every machine, the muted shuffles of footsteps just outside the door, voices murmuring foreign words…I cried.

I cried the tears of a mother begging God to not take her child. In all my years, I have never cried in such a way. I hope never to again.

There have been so many crying bouts, tears for Peyton, tears for myself, tears for my family, tears for the other children and families battling cancer and especially the ones that lost the fight.

But nothing compares to that first night in the hospital.

And God answered me.

Not in the way I wanted. I can be real honest in the fact that I begged and pleaded and demanded that He fix it. Take it away. Make it GONE.  There was nothing humble or respectful about the conversation I had with God that night. It was angry and full of my resentment for what he was doing to me baby girl.

He answered anyway.

When the nurse came in later to check on us, I asked for a Bible.

It was the sorriest Bible I’d ever seen.

It was a beaten up, wrecked book with tear-stained pages…torn in places…ripped in others…it was a well-used Bible. It was a Bible that belonged on a pediatric oncology floor.

I didn’t have anything in particular I was looking for, I wasn’t even sure why I’d asked. I had no intentions of really getting into any reading at that point.  I think I just wanted to hold it, to clutch it like a drowning man would swear to never let go of that last plank of floating wood.

And the Bible fell apart.

It freaking fell apart.

A whole chunk of it just FELL.OUT.ONTO.THE.FLOOR.

I remember thinking “Wonderful, the Bible fell apart, that’s got to be a GREAT sign.”

And I bent over to retrieve the scattered pages and my eyes caught one verse on one page.

Romans 12:12.

Rejoice in hope,

Be patient in tribulation,

Be constant in prayer.

I can’t say that it comforted me, that it filled me with the knowledge that everything would be OK and confidence that we could do this.

But that verse spoke to me and clarified that although there was nothing I could do for my daughter’s body, I could do these things….and God would handle the rest.

The years that followed have seen many conversations with God that reverted back to demands and anger….confusion at HOW this could possibly be what He wants spilling out more time than I can count.

But, always, that voice that lets me know that there’s power infinitely beyond mine that’s calling the shots and understanding what seems incredibly wrong to my narrow thinking.

Even though we’re on this side of that day…remission, good-health, survivorship…the 13th still holds incredible power over my heart.

It reminds me how fragile our lives are.

How large the lie that we control anything.

How quickly it can all change.

But my verse? It’s power is strong as well.

How big faith can be.

How powerful God is.

Although I will never tell you that my faith keeps the fear at bay or my anger under control, it’s what has kept me from giving up and allowed me to get out of bed every morning (well, most mornings).

It’s been what allows us to keep laughing, keep living thought it.

It always will be.