August 31, 2007 - This Wonderful Day

Today is a good day . . . today the doctors gave us amazing news that I believe I am still digesting. It is news I can hardly believe: Keira is beating the cancer.

I will post the details in a minute, but for those who have been with us the whole time and for those who joined along the way, I feel compelled to take a short journey back to what our lives have been like since March 9, 2007. Following you will find some short quotes from previous posts. If you have the time, take a minute and see what God has faithfully brought us through. I have listed the date the entry was posted and then just a brief section that describes something we were going through.


. . . march 9, 2007 "Friday night March 9, 2007 our little girl was diagnosed with cancer. It was the most difficult news either one of us had ever heard. That evening we could barely hold it together and honestly thought it was nightmare we would eventually wake from."

. . . march 15, 2007 "Our familes are doing all they can, but live in different states. However, we do not feel alone. We not only feel our families' love, but we feel the love of church of God . . . it is a testimony to what it means to be a believer in Jesus Christ."

. . . march 26, 2007 "We also know that while our family needs the results to be good, God does not. If God is going to heal our little girl, we must believe that He will heal her no matter the prognosis. Percentages mean nothing to God. I know this in my mind and my heart is trying to hold onto to this truth, but it is hard at this moment in time when it is my daughter's life that is the percentage we are talking about. All morning I have been singing this song:

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father; There is no shadow of turning with Thee; Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not; As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be. Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed Thy hand hath provided; Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

My singing is not yet because I feel this truth completely in my heart and emotions, but because I know it is true, because I need it to be true, because God is truly all we have at this moment. "

. . . march 29, 2007 "Today at 1:00 pm, Keira Grace goes goes in for her first round of chemo. We feel like this is a turning point. The tests are over; the war begins. We have seen in our little girl a strength that defies her age, that defies her little body, that is going, with God's help, to defy this cancer . . . she is not giving in and neither are we."

. . . april 21, 2007 "So far this round has been worse. She has thrown up multiple times, including twice this evening. She is also starting to lose her hair. Please pray for her. It is hard to put into words how it feels to hold this little girl while she cries and vomits in the middle of the night."

. . . april 23, 2007 "She is not yet herself, but this afternoon, the pre-chemo Keira showed her face. After 3 days of fussiness and other more unpleasant experiences, it was a relief and a joy to see little Keira Grace waving her rattles around and trying for long periods of time with such a serious demeanor to open a pink plastic egg. That is the little girl who regularly owned our home prior to her chemo treatments, the girl who almost got lost under the weight of toxic chemicals they had to pump into her little body."

. . . may 10, 2007 "For everyone who has supported us, we love you and we thank you and we need you and we want you to know that our daughter means more to us than anything in this world and when you do something for her, you do something for us that we will never be able to fully thank you for, never be able to really express how much it means to us. Thank you for helping us take care of our baby. "

. . . may 20, 2007 "It is not about answers for us. We do not know God's plan, but we know God. And when we fall, He is there. In these days while we wait for her last round, while we wait for those scans that come in June, while we wait to hear whether or not she has been cured, all we can do is believe in an almighty, good God and trust that He is going through this with us. Jesus called it faith like a child. I have seen that faith. I want that faith. It is what will sustain us. "

. . . June 1, 2007 "Keira did very well today. We should be used to it by now, but we are still in awe of our 13 month old who takes in stride what would make either of us fall apart.

. . . june 22, 2007 "Today, things have changed. This war is not over, but the field of battle looks very different now. Today we experienced a victory that we prayed for and believed for and rejoiced knowing that others prayed along with us. The results of the MIBG scan came back today. I can hardly type those results out because part of me still does not believe it. There is good improvement in the size of the main tumor in her chest, and there is no sign of the cancer in her bones."

. . . july 9, 2007 "Finally the test results came today . . . We proceed with surgery tomorrow, as planned. We are nervous about this. Even though we have discussed this with both the surgeon and the oncologist to the point that I'm sure both of them feel exhausted, we still don't know what to expect. We pray that God will guide the surgeon's hands to get all of the tumor, without injuring any nerves . . . We have been asked to trust God in ways that we never thought possible over the past few months. Tomorrow we will be asked to do this again."

. . . july 20, 2007 "About 12:00 pm last night, Keira got very restless. Normally, she will put herself back to sleep, but not last night. We had to get up with her and hold her and rock her and it still took a long time to settle her down. She then woke up again around 3:00. This time, she had a fever of 101.5. For cancer patients that means a trip to the ER. So, about 4:00 am, we took Keira to Children's. We have been so blessed that this hasn't happened before. "

. . . august 3, 2007 "Keira's doctors called us today and told us that the urine tests were essentially unchanged and still normal. Combined with the fact that her scans showed that the tumor in her chest hasn't changed, they feel comfortable continuing to watch her. We will go back in a month to repeat both the CT and the urine tests and make sure that they continue to be stable. We are grateful for this news, and we hope and pray that her tests in a month will show similar results. "


Today 8/31/2007 -- It is amazing to look back on the past 6 (yes 6) months. After all this time, I can palpably feel the fear and pain we felt when we learned of Keira's diagnosis. Tonight we found out that Keira's tumor continues to shrink - while she is off treatment. This is incredibly encouraging to us and means that Keira gets to continue to be off chemo. Neuroblastoma is a very unpredictable disease and children have had recurrances after years of being disease free, however this is not the usual pattern. The fact that Keira's tumor is shrinking makes it very likely that it will continue to shrink and that our wonderful precious daughter will get to live a normal life. We are so grateful for these results. We know that Keira will never be truly out of the woods, but we feel that we have just entered a clearing in the trees. We'll take it!

Right now our little girl is sleeping peacefully, and tonight we will sleep in a kind of peace we have not known for a long time.

Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for remembering us. Keira's doctors have been wonderful. God has been exceedingly faithful and good to us.

Jason, Erin and Keira Grace