On June 1, 2010 our two year old, "Little Air Bear," was diagnosed with Childhood Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) Type M7. After enduring 146 days at Primary Children's Medical Center, Erin is now in remission and living a full life at home with our family. Her strong will and constant happy smile is an inspiration to us all. Through our difficult circumstances we found great strength and peace in our Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank you for checking in on us.
My kids have a different way at looking at cancer than most kids. Actually, most kids probably don't know much about cancer and that's really the way it should be. My kids have been saying things now and then about cancer that I just keep meaning to write down because it's very interesting how they see things now. I wish I could remember all the odd remarks they have made over the last "almost" 2 years. These are some of the latest.
My 5 year old son said the other day, "I hope our next baby has cancer. That way we can play in the big play room at Primary Children's."
Um, yeah! My son obviously does not get the picture of what cancer really is. But, we are so grateful that he has come away from this experience without emotional scars from what we went through. An extra reason we love Primary Children's is the Forever Young Zone on the 3rd floor. The staff & volunteers there spent many hours playing with all of our kids either in the playroom or in Erin's room. They were so kind to our kids and gave them extra special attention, after the months of being there, many of the workers there knew our kids names without us having to tell them."
Yesterday my almost 7 year old daughter said, "I am going to be a nurse when I grow up. I want to work at Primary Children's Hospital with the cancer kids." I responded, "You'd make a great nurse, but it would be really hard work because not all kids with cancer live and you'll have a lot of sad moments working there." She said, "I still want to do it."
I really think she'd be a remarkable nurse. I'm not all doom and gloom, but I want her to know the reality that it's not going to be fun and games and that a lot of kids die of cancer. There were many days there that I'd come out of Erin's room to find my nurse and several other nurses with tears in their eyes. I always wondered who lost a child that day.
For the last few weeks Erin has been certain that our upcoming baby is a girl!
I guess we should've listened to her because she was right.
Erin is going to be a big sister.
Our Baby Girl is due in September.
We are getting in touch with Viacord about saving this baby's cord blood.
Why?
First, our two other kids were not bone marrow matches for Erin, so she doesn't have a perfect sibling bone marrow match (yet). If this baby is a match and Erin relapses then we'll have a perfect match for Erin. Viacord has a sibling connection program that will save our baby's cord blood in case Erin needs it. Isn't that awesome?
Did you know that you can donate your newborn's cord blood to a cord blood bank?
It's really easy and as far as I've researched it's FREE to donate the cord blood. It doesn't hurt the baby or the mom. Our friend Millie has relapsed ALLeukemia and is undergoing chemo and soon some awful radiation in preparation for a cord blood transplant, it's similar to a bone marrow transplant, just using cord blood instead of bone marrow. Our friend Brielle, who had relapsed AMLeukemia recently successfully finished her cord blood transplant.
Generous people donate their newborns' cord blood to a bank like Viacord and then it becomes available to save lives! It has saved Brielle's life and could save Millie's too!
So, if you're expecting and you aren't planning on saving your baby's cord blood please consider researching more about donating it and saving a life! Cord blood can be used to treat up to 80 different diseases.
The Benefit Concert for CureSearch last night was a smashing success! Our performing artists displayed fabulous musical skills and it was a night of great music and good feelings as we were all working towards one goal, funding childhood cancer research and finding a cure! Stay tuned to this blog to see photos and a short video clip from the concert.
If you missed the concert, we're so sorry! But, you can still donate!
If you want to email me at cachevalleycancerkids@gmail.com I can give you may mailing address if you want to mail a check or drop off cash.
OR
You can go to our DONATION SITE HERE and donate by credit card to our General Team Donation for our CureSearch Team "Cache Valley Cancer Kids."
After Erin was diagnosed with cancer we really wanted to find other families in our area who also had kids with cancer. It took us awhile, but we are now in contact with several families in our valley who have kids that have had cancer. It has been so therapeutic to have cancer friends close by. We have started up Cache Valley Cancer Kids, a group of families that are teaming together to find a cure for cancer!
We put together a team for the 2nd annual CureSearch walk! We did the walk last year and our Team Little Air Bear raised nearly $2000 dollars! We are so excited to be teaming together with other families and are super excited to enjoy the cancer walk again. The BEST part: 100% of ALL donations will go directly to childhood cancer research.
Feel free to check out our blog:
www.cachevalleycancerkids.blogspot.com
We have bios on some of the kids in our valley who have cancer as well as information about what we are trying to do.
I'm finally achieving my goal to put on a Benefit Concert for Childhood Cancer Research. I am thrilled to share the news that several very talented musicians have agreed to donate a performance!
Mark your calendar and come if you can. If you can't make it, please consider donating to childhood cancer research in honor of Erin.
Cache Valley audiences will recognize Vanessa Ballam in her recent role as Maria, in the Sound of Music. She spent three years as a Resident Actor at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Santa Maria and last year as a visiting professor of Theatre at Utah State University. Vanessa currently serves as Education Director at UFMOT continuing the tradition of Arts Education in the lives of the youth of our Valley. A former Miss Utah, Vanessa received the Bert Parks talent award while at the Miss America Pageant.
Pianist Brandon Lee has been thrilling audiences for well over 20 years. Brandon has won first place in more than 40 state, regional, and national competitions. He has soloed with the Utah Symphony three times and with orchestras in Colorado and California. He has had the privilege of working with such artists as Leon Fleisher, Stephen Hough, and Olga Kern.
At the age of 8, Trenton Chang, won 1st place in the UMTA State Piano Concerto Competition. In 2009 and 2011 Trenton was chosen to perform with the Utah Symphony in Abravanel Hall. In May 2010 he was invited to perform the entire Mozart Concerto No. 23 in the Beverly Sorenson Young Artists. This March, Trenton appeared on NPR's From the Top. Trenton is enjoying 8th grade and loves to hike and travel.
Stefan Espinosa has appeared in theaters across the United States, from the central coast of California tothe Bayou's of Texas. Currently Stefan serves as the Conservatory Director for Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theatre where he also teaches acting and musical theatre classes. This Summer Stefan will appear in leading roles in three OLRC shows including Huckleberry Finn from Big River.
Sophie Spreier is in her second year studying Music Performance at Utah State University. Playing music has brought Sophie to audiences in Mexico, Canada, and multiple states with her favorite experience being a trip to New York City for a lesson with Yo-Yo Ma. Sophie aspires to become a freelance studio musician in the film industry.
Nicole Tolson began violin studies at age four and competed in her first National violin competition and was chosen to play at the Suzuki Association of America conference, five years later. By age eleven, she was touring Poland, with a special performance in Prague and Poland. Throughout her teen years she performed in Florence, Rome, Siena, and Venice. Nicole is a scholarship student at Utah State University majoring in violin performance and performed Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto as a soloist with the Utah State University Orchestra in 2011.
Azure Kline is honored to be asked to take part in the support of children's cancer research. She started playing the cello twelve years ago, and over the years her passion for music has grown and developed into a life long desire to bless those who hear her, and to share God's love with them. Apart from playing the cello, she loves spending time with her family, hiking, and learning about the american constitutional system. Azure is a senior at Sky View High School, and currently a student of Anne Francis Bayless.
Erin is nearly 4 years old and we had to do a little photo shoot of her darling pigtails. We never did them before cancer because her hair was so bad back then - she was anemic for over a year before being diagnosed with AML and that caused her hair to be brittle and dry so I rarely put elastics in it. Now she has a head full of healthy, shinny, silky hair that can be nicely styled in pigtails.
Enjoy the pictures of Erin hamming it up!
I think it was funny that she choose to wear her Make-A-Wish shirt to preschool, it is the first time she's worn it anywhere besides a Make-A-Wish event. Later in the afternoon the kids and I visited a few local pediatrician offices to get some HopeKids brochures passed around Cache Valley. We love HopeKids and all that they have done for our family! We are so proud to announce that HopeKids is coming to Cache Valley and will start holding activities for families here who have a child with cancer or other life threatening illness in this wonderful valley.
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Now a few pictures of my other cute kiddies...
Caleb got ready for preschool on Friday and decided to don his exploring outfit. He wore those binoculars around his neck until it was time for bed, occasionally using them to spot things in the house or yard.
