Thank You!

We have had a lot of fun at home this past week. I hate to make Payton go back to the hospital tomorrow. Hopefully, his counts will be high enough to start another round of chemo. We are ready to get this over. This round is only a 2 day hospital admission, so we should be able to go back home on Wednesday if all goes well. We are really hoping that we can stay out of the hospital over Christmas. It would be nice if the kids could have some sort of normalcy for the holidays.

I have struggled so much wondering if Payton’s cancer will ever return. Will he go on with life living life as a healthy child? Will he end up with any long term side effects that we will have to face from this nasty chemo and radiation? I’ve never been faced with something that I have felt so helpless with little control over. I know that all things are in the Lord’s hands and time and whatever happens is His plan. It still doesn’t make it easy at times. I don’t know what I would ever do without my little Payton and I don’t ever want to know what that would feel like. There are never any guarantees in life, but all this has made me do a lot of thinking. I love Payton so much and feel so blessed to have him as my son. I often think about why this happened to Payton? Why did this happen to my family? Why did Payton have to have cancer, surgery, get sick, be poked and deal with challenges that he faces? It just doesn’t seem fair that a 2 year old should have to endure so much. Is this his challenge? Is it my challenge? Did he accept this challenge in the pre-life? What are we supposed to learn from this? I know that the Lord has said that he will never give us more than we can handle. I have definitely questioned this over the past 7 months and I will definitely have a lot of questions to ask some day. I think that sometimes we go through life too quickly not realizing what is most important. I know that I did before all this happened. We have to stop and think about why we are here and what we are supposed to accomplish while we are here.

One thing that I do know is that we were meant to be in Texas during this time. I know that we were meant to be close to my sister whom gives me strength, faith and courage. I have been so lucky to have such a wonderful boss that has helped us financially get through this. We have been so lucky to be close to a children’s hospital. We have been so blessed to be in the ward that we are in and to have the friends that we have. I believe that we were meant to be here to have the friends that we have to help us get through this challenge. It would have been extremely hard to get through this without the support we have had. I just wanted to say how grateful I am to all of my church ward members, friends and family. We have been so blessed to have such wonderful friends. Thanks to all of you for the gift cards, cookies, meals, visits, and other anonymous packages. You have all been so kind and we really appreciate your generosity. It has been a crazy 7 months and it’s nice to know that we have such an awesome support team. Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers.