Please continue to pray for Adelaine. Last night she had a really rough night, wakening often from pain in her head, specifically the top of her head and her eyes. While she was drinking her juice in the dark, I heard a little “pop”, it was her lip bursting open, so now she has a bloody lip to top it off. The good news is that her ear tubes seem to be working and her ears have remained clear. She is looking very pail and sickly. Morphine and blood have been ordered for breakfast, yum!

Because she has been in the hospital so often since January with multiple infections, her doctor has ordered “titers” on her hemoglobin to see if she has a deficit in a specific area in her blood on a genetic level, as a result of her treatments. If this proves to be the case she will get blood once a month for the remainder of her treatments to help boost her levels back up, and we’ll possibly be looking for donors from friends and family with her blood match, which is A negative. They also ordered another CAT scan on her sinuses. The results came back clear, so they were able to rule out another sinus infection. It’s been 48 hours since they pulled her blood to test for a blood infection, so far it’s been negative. It can turn to positive within a 72 hour period, but so far so good.

Last night the boys came for a long while to visit. They had a blast! They played Play station, watched a movie, and we all played TV hospital bingo. The children each called in with a joke. Exhausted Bowen fell asleep here at 7:30pm. They left after Doug’s meeting around 9:30pm. The boys handle us being here so well. Daddy makes sure they have fun while we’re away. He tries to take them somewhere special to eat at least once while were here, and they always get to sleep in our bedroom in their tent! The night before last they ate at Wing House, which is their favorite place to eat. Yes, Doug has trained them well!!

Also, please pray for Bowen. He will be having his adenoids out on April 24th, along with a sinus culture. Just recently, he has been having some issues breathing while he’s asleep, along with some urinary issues. We took him to the Pediatrition last week, and the tests came back negative for a urinary track infection, but something still isn’t quite right. On Monday, April 23rd he has an appointment with the Urologist. Please pray that it’s nothing serious, and that his surgery goes well.

I have so many wonderful things that have been going on that I am really excited to share. Please keep checking back for more updates. Adelaine has had so many blessings through all this that I can’t wait to tell everyone about. Thank you for caring, it truly means so much. Angela

When Adelaine feels good, she feels really good! Last Friday we went to USF to support “Team Peyton” at the Relay for life for the American Cancer Society. Anissa did a tremendous job raising money for the foundation. She raised nearly $5,000.00!!! She had different companies make donations to be auctioned off. I honestly don’t know how she pulled it off, it was unbelievable. There were gift certificates to local restaurants, discount stores like Wal-Mart, autographed jerseys and painting, fishing poles, a Crackle Barrel rocker and sooo much more. She did basically everything herself, including asking for the donated items. All the entry boxes were labeled and beautifully wrapped. It was a Marketing – Visual Merchandising Major’s dream!!!! Her theme was childhood cancer. She took pictures of some of the children, locally and across the US who are still fighting or who have lost their lives to this disease, and made a magazine cover with each. These little faces adorned the tent where the items were being auctioned. Please go to her website to view the “Child” magazine covers and pray over these children and their families.

As for the relay itself, it was an all night event which took place on the USF soccer field. Tents were set up, but did anyone sleep? Cancer survivors were given t-shirts, so we were able to point out to Adelaine all the people who had cancer just like her. Some of the teenage girls would come up to her and say how they had cancer too! Adelaine would show them her port placement scar and they would show theirs to her. It was like a badge of honor from some secret sorority. I was so proud of my daughter and those girls.

Donations were accepted to have a loved one’s name placed on a luminary, which was lit at dark and placed around the field. The lights were turned off and everyone did a victory walk around the big loop. It was beautiful and moving to have so many people come together for a common purpose.

After the walk the lights went back on and the party lasted until 9:00 am. Peyton and Adelaine both wore their pink pajamas and partied with the best of them. It was so easy to pick out the two pink “angles” running across the field!! Adelaine was having the time of her life. She met a group of college girls that she fell in love with, and they fell in love with her too. They catered to and played with her until about 1:00 am! She and Peyton were the sorority mascots for the night and loving EVERY minute of it. Mason and Bowen played soccer with their dad, played lots of fun raiser games, ate lots of food, and made some new friends.

In the wee hours things did get a little crazy. The all-night DJ decided to have a fashion show of men dressed like women, to raise money. Oh yes, Anissa talked Doug into participating (it didn’t even seem to take that much convincing, either)! To see my husband in a black form-fitting cocktail dress was quite a sight. Because of the bald head and all the curves the DJ named him Brittney Spears!! It all happened so quickly too. One minute my husband was being a good dad playing soccer with all the kids, next thing I know, there’s Brittney! I ran around the campsite looking for my camera and had to settle on the camcorder. Someone from Peyton’s Team had Adelaine and the boys were with, it turns out Anissa. Anyway there I was videotaping this freaky fashion show. Have you ever had a moment where you were glad your camera/ video camera wasn’t working? Well, that was one of those rare moments. Just as Doug entered the stage the camcorder ran out of batteries!! Anissa said she was pretty sure the boys would be scarred for life! Even so, I love my husband, he’s such a good sport!

The next morning when we were all packing up, poor Adelaine was so upset. She wanted to party at least one more night! She wanted to play with Peyton and Rachael a little longer, and besides she still had so much to talk about with her new friends. It was her very first experience camping out, and she loved it. It was so much fun; she just couldn’t understand why it had to end. Honestly, I think we all felt that way!

Please pray for Adelaine. She woke up this morning with a 103 degree fever. That means an automatic 3 day stay at the hospital while they check her for a blood infection.

Thank you
Doug

Easter 2007

First of all, Adelaine did get out of the hospital 1 ½ days before her 3rd birthday. The boys were out of town with their grandparents for Spring Break, so Doug and I took her to Bush Gardens for the day, she really enjoyed being out of the hospital and having her parents all to herself for the day. That evening, we went to Peyton’s house for pizza and had pink and purple cupcakes with sprinkles!

We’ll it’s almost been an entire month since my last post! Wow, we have been so overwhelmed, where to begin? Little Miss Adelaine has been through so much during this time. She was in the hospital for the majority of February and March. We dealt with a blood infection, the threat of pneumonia, C-diff (which is an intestinal bacteria), we had CT scans, multiple chest x-rays, blood tests, blood infusions, and more, it was quite the ride! Sinusitis and ear infections were reoccurring every time she got off her antibiotics, which led us down the road of ear tubes and an adenoidectomy. The antibiotics themselves have created harsh side effects such as bouts with C-diff, yeast infections, diarrhea, and mouth ulcers. Last Friday she had tubes put in and her adenoids taken out, finally yesterday she was to go back off the antibiotics again. If you’ve tried contacting me please know that I have been in the Leukemia fighting funk. I’ve been terrible at checking messages and haven’t checked my emails in quite some time. The support we’ve received has really kept us going. I thank God so much for the caring support of friends, family and strangers, oh please forgive my lack of contact. I’m hoping things will settle down a bit for us and I can stay better intouch with everyone.

One way to describe fighting this cancer monster would be like having a fire burning right in the middle of the living room floor, sometimes just sort of smoldering and at other times blazing crackling and popping,threatening to consume the entire house and everything in it. Sometimes it feels like the flames are under control, but we are never able to put the fire out completely. So we try to live our lives around it, learning to live around something so out of place has proven to be difficult at best. I’ve personally tried to put my arms around it and just accept it, only to be left with burns scars and blisters. Fighting Leukemia is unpredictable, exhausting, gut wrenching and mind boggling. I feel like our little boys are often covered with soot and ashes from the fire. Let me just say, “I HATE CANCER!!!” This terrible unpredictable monster strikes whomever it wishes, even innocent little children.

Watching Adelaine go through all this is so hard. Just placing the children in the bath tub with a freshly skinned knee, hurts my soul. When they have a cold and can’t breathe through their little noses, it kills me. Those things compared to this are like a single mild cramp verses an all natural child birth to a 13 lb. baby which never quite seems to be born!

I can honestly say that we have been in a Leukemia fighting funk. For sometime Adelaine was not doing well at all. There didn’t seem to be one part of her body that didn’t ache, right down to her fingers and toes. Her toys were left untouched for days at the time, and she even lost her desire to walk. We literally carried her around the house, she just didn’t have any energy.

Things are much better now, but it took a while for me to believe it. When things were so bad, she would have an ok day every now and then. So a couple of weeks ago she had a good day, followed by another and another, we are really on a roll now, one good day after the next. It’s been wonderful. It feels like we have our little girl back again. Even through this last surgery, she’s felt great! Last Friday when they took her adenoids and placed ear tubes, they also gave her a chemo injection into her spine, Vincristine into her port and she’s been on steroids for five days now and of course taking her daily chemo. Her mouth is covered in blisters, but she has energy, rosy cheeks and lots of hops and jumps in her walk! The steroids have brought with them a very hearty appetite, restlessness during the night and a temporary undesirable temperament (to put it mildly), but I certainly can’t complain!!! It feels good to see her energy back and it feels good to be back on her website again!