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

http://thededicatedhouse.blogspot.com/

Beverly's Pink Saturday

http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/

Natasha's Weekly Sundays Down

http://www.natashainoz.com/

Cathy's Making Memories Monday

 www.threekidsandafish.com

Sally's Blue Monday

http://smilingsally.blogspot.com