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Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Rea and Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, September, 2015

September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness month. Cancer sucks but we cannot ignore it. So many kids are diagnosed with it every day.  Each year, 175,000 children are diagnosed with cancer worldwide, and many of these kids don’t have access to modern treatment. In the U.S. alone, 16,000 kids and teens will be diagnosed with cancer this year.

Before my 3 year old granddaughter, Rea, was diagnosed with Stage IV High Risk Neuroblastoma (at age 2), I was not aware of these statistics either. I hope we can all be aware of it because cancer is not going away and research has to be funded. If you are looking for charitable organizations to donate to, please consider donating to those working towards childhood cancer research because they are severely underfunded. My heart breaks every time I see a child newly diagnosed or someone relapsing or suffering from this awful illness.
 On another note, I am very happy to announce that my granddaughter, Rea, is doing very well. She has finished her whole protocol of treatment successfully. She has been in remission for almost a year now. I would like to thank everybody again who prayed for her. Please continue to pray for her since she will have scans again next week. She has just been enrolled in a study to receive an oral drug to help prevent cancer cells from forming, but they can only give it to her if the scans and bone marrow biopsies indicate she is still in remission. Please pray that all tests will be negative.
Isn't Rea pretty with her growing hair? She was pretty when she was bald, too, but she loves her hair.
Recently, she and her family enjoyed a week at Give Kids the World in Kissimmee/Orlando and met Princess Rapunzel at Disney's Magic Kingdom, which was all part of her wish granted by the Make a Wish Foundation. They were also given passes to several other theme parks in Orlando and the whole family had a blast. After a year of being in and out of the hospital for chemo and other treatments, they certainly deserved this break.
Rea with her twin sister, Halle, and baby sister, Myla.
 She is a very happy girl, always smiling, even when she was in the hospital. She was so brave throughout her whole treatment and we are all so very proud of her.


 With her mom - my daughter, Rochelle
 The whole family

Rea's  Make a Wish Foundation t-shirt is blue


 She loves the Disney princesses
 She even believes she is a princess herself, lol.

 With twin sister, Halle, and baby sister, Myla. They all wear the same size now and look like triplets.
 The twins with cousin, Reese. I call them my triplets, and when with Myla, my quads.
 Aren't they just the cutest? They love playing together.


 When they went to Epcot, she saw Mickey and ran to him and gave him the longest and tightest hug.




 Same with Minnie
 The whole family!




 The princesses were so good to her and spent so much time with her. I think this is such a precious and sweet photo.
 We flew into Orlando from Europe, and decided to stay for 2 nights. The next morning, we went to see Rea and her family at Give Kids the World. When she saw us, she ran to me and gave me the biggest hug, too. So glad I got my share of her sweet hugs, too, even though I am not a princess, lol.

Thank you so much for stopping by. I am forever grateful that our little girl is doing so well.
I am linking with
 
Anything Blue Friday
Beverly's Pink Saturday
Natasha's Weekly Sundays Down
http://www.natashainoz.com/
Cathy's Making Memories Monday
Sally's Blue Monday

16 comments:

  1. Blessings to you!
    So happy that your Grand daughter is doing well!
    I hate cancer,
    d

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  2. Happy to see everyone so happy and relaxing a little bit with the family..God bless your beautiful grand babies .good to hear from you.all the best and thanks for posting .

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  3. Christine, what a magical time for sweet Rea! So happy she is doing well. How scary, and at such a young age! She just radiates love and I can tell that the princesses were so good to her too. Thanks for sharing this sweet adventure with us!

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  4. Rea is precious Christine! So many prayers has went up for that precious child and I love hearing the wonderful news. Praying that miracles happen every step of the way. Thanks for keeping us updated on sweet Rea. Hugs and blessings, Cindy

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  5. The pictures are all adorable of the smiling girls, they look so happy

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  6. So happy for you all most especially Rea, I continually pray for her everyday! God bless!

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  7. All of the girls are so so so cute! I'm so glad they were able to go Disney. It looks like they had a fabulous time. Still praying!

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  8. Thank you for sharing this very touching story. It happens everyday. So thankful she is doing well and handled good.

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  9. Well, I just cried my eyes out, reading how well she is doing. I so remember when it all started happening and we all prayed so hard for this sweet little girl. I am so happy and I know your broken heart heals more every minute as she gets better and better. Praying the tests will all be good....
    love to all, xoxo, bj

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  10. Yea for Rea! I'm so happy Rea has had good success in fighting this. Our great niece was one of the lucky ones too. She was diagnosed when she was to enter Kindergarten. She missed two years of school, but is a healthy 7th grader this year. Continued prayers for all these children facing cancer.

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  11. Rea looks as if she has found some very special magic with her family in a magical place. A gorgeous series of photos.

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  12. Hi Christine,

    I'm so glad that Rea has a good report, and I will pray for those scans to be negative. (My brother-in-law has recently finished chemo and is scheduled for his PET scan. Please pray for him.)

    Thanks for celebrating Blue Monday's 7th blogiversary.

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    1. Thanks, Sally! I will pray for your brother in law. Hope scan results show NED.....Christine

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  13. Congratulations to Rea on her remission! Will certainly pray for good results from her scans and tests. You are all so brave together and it was fun to see everyone enjoying Disney!

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