Post from Maddy

Hi, it's Maddy. I am very happy to get back to school. My teacher is very nice and my class is too.

Love,

Maddy

The Journey Continues- One Year Later

This past Friday, November 12th, marked the one year anniversary of Maddy's leukemia diagnosis. It is hard to believe that ONE whole year has gone by. Looking back, it is also hard to believe all that our family has experienced in just one year. Obviously, we had many lows but we can honestly say that this past year has also been filled with much joy, hope, faith, kindness, and compassion! Maddy continues to do well with her treatments and we keep getting closer to that day when she will hopefully be able to put all of this behind her and never look back!

Our gratitude goes out to all of our family and friends who continue to support us throughout this journey...

Homecoming Princess 2010

A picture is worth a thousand words!

Faith

Looking back at this past week, we feel God answered our prayers and revealed to us the power of FAITH. We felt the need to share this.

Last Sunday, we learned that a very brave young man named Kellen Keiser lost his 16 month battle with cancer. We were first introduced to Kellen on November 13, 2009. This was when a local news channel did a story about Kellen who was using Skype to "attend" school while he was going through treatments for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. We watched this news clip from Maddy's hospital room at St. V's the day after she was diagnosed with the same form of leukemia. From there, we were fortunate to get to know Kellen and his family a little bit. We would see them at the clinic or on the 6th floor of the hospital. We would get updates on Kellen from family who live in Archbold. We were able to walk the survivor lap with him at this year's Fulton County Relay for Life. Kellen and Maddy wore each other's bracelets... We can't claim to have known Kellen or his family well, but we felt as though we shared a bond brought on by unfortunate circumstances. When we learned that Kellen passed away, our hearts were broken for his family and all the fears that we had managed to put out of our minds, came rushing back in. We could feel our FAITH wavering.

When Russ and I went to Kellen's viewing on Wednesday, his dad said he did not know how anyone who did not have FAITH could do this and while it was unfortunate that Kellen had to lose his battle with cancer after 16 months of fighting, he took comfort in knowing that Kellen was able to touch so many lives along the way. We were glad that Kellen was no longer in pain and as we looked at him in his Ohio State jersey wearing Maddy's bracelet, Russ and I felt blessed to have known Kellen, and Tina and Kirk's FAITH gave us strength.

On Thursday, Maddy was a "Celebrity Scooper" at Cold Stone for their Make-A-Wish fundraiser. (Thank you to everyone who came to support this great cause!) At this event, Maddy was fortunate to meet three Defiance High School students who were asked to participate in this event. Anthony, Alexis, and Jacob spent three hours of their time passing out ice cream and making Maddy feel special. At the end of the night, they presented her with some Defiance t-shirts. (We joked that Maddy would have to be careful when she wore them.) Then, Anthony said he had a couple of other things he wanted to give Maddy. He gave Maddy a piece of net that he had cut down during a District Basketball Championship. He said it was to remind her that if you set your mind on something and work really hard, you can achieve great things. He also gave her a little wooden statue that he said he had in his car and wanted her to have. It had the word FAITH carved at the top and the following bible verse engraved at the bottom:

If you have FAITH as small as a Mustard Seed, nothing will be impossible for you. (Matthew 17:20)

We left the Cold Stone event again feeling our FAITH strengthened.

Finally, today at church, Russ and I listened to the gospel. In the gospel, the Apostles asked Jesus to increase their FAITH. Jesus said to the Apostles that if they have FAITH as small as a mustard seed, they would be able to uproot a tree and plant it again in the sea... (Russ and I just looked at each other.) Father Gary went on to say that people of great FAITH are dedicated to loving God and that love is so powerful that it moves their hearts to great acts of self-giving. People with great FAITH serve in ways beyond what is expected of them. When we ask Jesus to increase our FAITH, we see the results in our greater love for God and in our willingness to give of ourselves in service to the needs of others.

We left church this morning with our FAITH renewed and thankful for the FAITHFUL people God shared with us this past week.

September Update

Maddy went for her monthly chemo treatment at the clinic today. The doctor and nurses all commented on how good she looked. They all loved her new hair-do! We were a little worried about her port not working properly. It was a little sluggish last month, but it worked just fine today. Her counts were also good. They were actually too good. The doctor said they want to keep her absolute neutrophil count (her immune system) around 1500 during this maintenance phase. Maddy's count has been higher than this the last few months. This means they may need to increase her oral chemo meds next month. We guess they want to give her as much chemo as possible to make sure those leukemia cells don't come back. We'll have to ask more questions next month.

Maddy is excited to be back at school. So far things are going well. It is wonderful to see her back with her friends. She is armed each day with her hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes. We will soon all be getting our flu shot too. Our hope is to keep Maddy as germ free as possible so she can continue to be at school with her friends.

On September 30, Maddy will be in Defiance at the Cold Stone Creamery from 5-8 PM as a celebrity scooper. On this day, Cold Stone donates a portion of their sales to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. As we have said before, Make-A-Wish is truly a wonderful organization. They have done a lot for our family. This is our way of giving back, so come out and get some ice cream on September 30th!

First Day of School

Armed with hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes, Maddy was able to go to school today and join her classmates for the first day of second grade. Many children were excited to come back to school while others were not so excited. Maddy, on the other hand, was extremely excited! She has been ready for school to start since July. Even though she "kept in touch" through Skype last year, nothing could replace the face to face interaction with her teachers and peers. It was a reminder to us that sometimes we take things for granted and don't realize what we have until it is gone. Through Maddy's experience, we have learned yet another life lesson.

Maddy will continue to take her daily and weekly chemo medications at home. Once a month we have to travel to the clinic for a chemo treatment. As long as her counts stay up and she can avoid as much sickness as possible, we hope to have a somewhat "normal" school year. We are keeping our fingers crossed!

Give Kids the World

We took our Make-A-Wish trip to Give Kids the World on July 13-19. (Sorry it has taken so long to post- our home computer crashed the day we got back.) All we can say is that the Make-A-Wish organization is truly wonderful and the Give Kids the World village is named appropriately. We were treated like royalty during the whole trip and it was a week of NO worries! We went to many parks, swam in a beautiful pool, participated in numerous activities at the village, and ate A LOT of ice cream. We are attaching some pictures, but it was difficult to choose which ones to post out of the 500 we took! The only problem- we are now so spoiled that any future vacations will fail by comparison.

P.S.- Even though we did not get to swim with the dolphins, we did meet some at Sea World. And yes- they do have belly buttons! : )