Following The Call » Our lives as we went from adopting to mission work to leukemia fighters.

Today marks six months since my sweet girl was diagnosed with cancer. 6 months since our lives were flipped upside down. Six months since I felt like my world was crashing in on my. Yet…   6 months later life has continued. We are all still standing, we are almost back to where we were a year ago (which I don’t necessarily like).

In the past 6 months, Lola  has been sedated 10 times. She has had 10 spinal taps, 3 bone marrow aspirations, 2 dye studies on her port that functions poorly at times, She has been ‘poked’ with needles about 50 times. She has had 10 blood transfusions and countless amounts of chemo. We have had to give her 8 shots of chemo at home and who knows how many pills of chemo at home. She lost her hair. Twice. She lost the ability to walk. She regained the ability to walk. She became very depressed and totally stopped talking. She starting talking again, and hasn’t even come close to stopping since. Although sometimes I wish she would.  She stopped sleeping at night. She actually went about 5 days getting about 15 minutes of sleep at a time.  She now takes sleeping pills at night.  She has become my hero.

In the past 6 months our family learned that we could not return to our homes in Tanzania. We realized we were un-empolyed and homeless. We learned to depend on others.  Matt found a job. We found a home. We bought a puppy. And some chickens.  We have learned a lot in the last 6 months. We have learned to be happy with each day. Now…. that does not mean that we don’t have some HARD days. Like crazy hard days, but at the end of that day we still have so much to be happy for.  There have been many hard days at clinic with Lola, where  she gets upset, and it hurts, and I cry with her. I squeeze her hand and we sing together through the tears and pain.

Having a child with cancer is a feeling of helpless-ness. There is not really much I can do to help keep the cancer away. I have no control of what happens. I have had to put my child’s life in the hands of people I don’t know at all.  In the midst of all this helpless-ness I have found a way to help. Its a small way to help, but its a way none the less. Most of you have probably read my posts on The Ultimate Hike. I am hiking 33 miles down the Tecumseh Trail on October 29. I have already started training and I some what hate every minute of it. haha…. I am not a running/hiking/walking kind of girl. But…  I would do anything for Lola!! The money raised goes to Cure Search, which is the organization that lola’s treatment plan comes from. I love cure search. Their goal is to find a cure for every child with cancer. I think thats a great goal.  They also work on coming up with effective treatment that is not so hard on the kids. And believe me…. the treatment is HARD on kids.

And this is where you all come in.  We have 9 people on Team Lola, with a fundraising goal of $22,500!!!   Thats $2,500 each person.   I am hoping that you will all consider helping this amazing cause. Help to find children a cure. While Lola is doing well at this moment, there are many people who have lost children to cancer and they never got to have any good days, or extra smiles like we have. Shortly after being diagnosed, when Lola got REALLY sick, I was terrified that she was going to die and I would never see another smile on her face again. Praise that Lord that that wasn’t the case, but my heart breaks for the parents who have lost children at that point and were not able to see their babies smile again.

6 months ago we experienced the most amazing outpouring of love from friends, family and strangers alike.  It is my prayer that you will all once again surround us with love and support, only this time we want that support to go out to ALL children who have, or will have cancer at some point in their childhood. Please visit my Hike webpage to learn more about cure search and to make a donation. CLICK HERE

So… Lola and I made a video that I attempted to upload. Well… turns out that youtube does not let you use copyrighted music anymore and I could either go to jail for a million years, pay 8 trillion dollars or just upload it to face book instead. SO thats what I did. The facebook option… not the jail or money option. If you want to see the movie and your on facebook just go HERE. I think you have to be my facebook friend to watch it. Feel free to friend me….

EDITED TO ADD:  On my third attempt to upload this movie, I think you can know watch it from the link below.  Go on… try it. All the cool kids are doing it.

Why We Hike