ANGEL - BRYCE

Sadly, we recieved the news yesterday that little Byrce Murray passed away. He was just 3 months old, but faught very hard from the day he was born. He was born with a heart condition called Transpostion of the Great Arteries. He underwent surgery to correct the problems. He did well and then got infections and went into multiple organ failure.

Please pray for this tiny tot and his family to be held by Our loving Lord.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY CLAIRE AND STEPHAN

Dear Stephan & Claire

Wishing you a very Happy 4th Wedding Anniversary and many many more!

We hope you enjoy reliving all the moments of that magical today and that your love continues to grow stronger each day, month and year ahead.

May God continue to strengthen you as you continue your journey together

God Bless, love

Mark Samm Deqlan Logan

CHILDHOOD CANCER AWARENESS MONTH

Today marks the last day of Childhood cancer awarness month - but it cant end here - this has just got to be the beginning of the awarness we can create, the support we can give, the prayers we can say, the funds and projects we can contribute towards to find the cure to end childhood cancer.

I have been so touched, sharing some stories with you of an amazing group of heros and legends. They have touched our lives more then they will know , and i am grateful for them letting me share their stories.

There are hundreds and thousands more precious children who are survivors, warriors and angels and i would love to honor them all - i have only mentioned a handful of these amazing children as i said i would each day in September, but i would like to honor todays post to you all - to those that we have come to love and know and treasure, those we only know be name, those we are still yet to met - to you all, may Our Lord and healing Savior bless you, reign His love upon you and your families, heal you, guide you, light your paths, strengthen you, comfort you and bring you His Hope, forever and always. I promise to do all in my power to continue fighting for this cause forever more.

here are more children i would like to mention and ask prayers for, there are so many more around the world, God Bless you all

Angels
Katie
Emily
James
Austin
Erin
Tyler
Isaac
Cody
Madison
Lillie
Koketso
Sarmone
Yolanda
JP
Chiarra
Charlize
Kata
Jayden
Henco
Sofia
Anna Meg
Brody
Joe
Marinus
AJ


Warriors
Sam
Nicholas
Melina
Charlotte
Anna
Imogen
Elijah
Quincy
Elizabeth
Sam
Joshua Cade
Carter Cummings
Max
Jordyn
Zach
Zachary
Billy
Wyatt
Sydney
Landon
Christian
Pierce
Connor
Dylan
Grace
Jackson
Kerith
Laura
Sam
Sydney Marie

Survivors
Toby
Sarah
Morgan
Mackenzie
Kristen
Kaitlyn
Megan
Destiny
Chad
Carter
Emma
Cherise
Sammy
Marett
Dunn Twins
Sean Hanson
Jak
Ryan
Mackenzie

NATIONAL BANDANA DAY 14 OCT 09

Please support those suffering from leukaemia and buy a Sunflower bandana for only R20 from your nearest Pick ‘n Pay store to wear on National Bandana Day on 14 October 2009.
Every South African is encouraged to wear a bandana to work, university or school to show their solidarity with those fighting leukaemia.
During the preparation for a bone marrow stem cell transplant, patients lose their hair and often wear a bandana to cover their head. National Bandana Day will boost the morale of cancer patients, as well as raising funds urgently needed for tissue typing more donors.
Thousands of South Africans, especially children, are diagnosed annually with life threatening blood disorders. For many, a bone marrow stem cell transplant from a healthy donor is the only possible life-saving treatment option. This is a daunting and traumatic task, with the chance of finding a matching donor about 1 in 100 000. Since the inception of The Sunflower Fund the registry has grown from 1 200 donors to just over 64 000 donors today.
The Sunflower Fund is a national non-governmental, non-profit organization based in Cape Town, South Africa, which runs a toll-free call centre, to recruit donor’s representative of all ethnic groups for the South African Bone Marrow Registry.
The Association of Round Tables of Southern Africa, including Namibia is committed to this campaign and will be promoting the sale of bandanas at centres around South Africa.
Lots of fun events and activities will take place around the country, watch the press for more details.
Don’t forget to let us know if you have anything exciting planned for National Bandana Day at your school or company. We would also appreciate any photos of your day to add to our website and our scrapbooks.
Come on South Africa, “Share a Little, to Save a Life”
Call our toll-free line on 0800 12 10 82 or contact us here more information

LIFES GOOD!!!

Hello Everyone

How are you all doing? It has been a loonnngg while since i sat down and wrote a post on how our precious Deqlan is doing - the answer is GREAT!

Deqlan is a lot more verbal at the moment, he is really attempting to say a lot of what we say and a lot of new words emerge each day. He is interacting more, he is understanding a lot more things, we know he knows a lot more then what he shows the world....

Some of his newest words include;
JESUS!!! from a DVD with the words, JESUS HAS RISEN AND FULFILLED THE PROPHECY!
bbc - like the british tv channel - he points as he says each letter B , B , C
LG -LIFES GOOD - oh this is to cute for words - LG like the electronic brand, Deqlan has always loved, but no he is saying the slogan to LIFES GOOD - yes it is my boy, its great
SAMSUNG - could be a bit of competition between the two hey?
NO - and very clearly to! when Deqlan wants to smack me, because he is excited, not because he is being naughty, or when he wants to throw something, he is so used to me saying no, he now does the action and the word, no at the same time!
SCISSORS
OGAN - FOR LOGAN
MEGGIE - he touches Megs car, then says Meggie, then touches my car and says Mamma!
3,2,1 - yip, Deqlan can count backwards
11 & 12 - in addition to numbers 1 through ten, he can now say eleven and twelve
CHA - for change - while wathching his cedarmont kids songs, if he isnt fond of the song, he will say CHA and we got to change to the next one - his favorite song at the moment is SKINA MARINK I DINK - forgive the spelling, i dont know if there is even a correct way to spell it!
TEDDIES - will explain below

Deqlan is loving music at the moment - he is humming along to the songs on his dvds and has even starting putting in words to the songs i hum and at the end of the song, he sings PUM PUM - do end the song off!

He continues to love Kowee chanel, the afrikaans chanel on dstv - i sing the la la la la part of the them song for Teddies and then Deqlan so beautifully and so sweetly fills the words in, " teddies, teddies, teddies pum pum' TO BEAUTIFUL FOR WORDS

Deqlan continues to love ALL THE SINGLE LADIES, but it has to be sung and acted out by Nanna to get the biggest smile and enjoyment !

Our little guy loves tucking Nanna and i into Nanna and grandpas bed to watch his dvds with him, and we have to lie in our assigned sides of the bed and our heads have to be down, while Deqlan ensure he has two pillows on his tummy - again, to do with the need for feeling deep pressure, he also wants us to lie on him to get this feeling when he needs it.

Deqlans tummy has been a bit upset the last few days - typical candida nappies, but he hasnt eaten anything, that we know of , to cause this and his behaviour doesnt match a candida flare up - so we will just keep an eye on it.

We gave him some cold beef slices the other day, which we thought might be a welcome change to the only handful of things he does eat, he gladly ate it, but his tummy sure wasnt glad about it and it came all back again. We also tried sweet potatoe, even hiding it in mince balls, but Deqlan could even pick the taste up this way and wouldnt touch them. Deqlans tummy is so sensitive, you can only imagine what wheat and dairy and sugar and soya and yeast could do to him and how yucky it could make him feel.

Deqlan is excelling at the table work Nanna so lovingly does with him everyday - we were treated to some of his skills, when Nanna casually brought some items out for Deqlan to play with - Liezl, our home intervention therapist asked Nanna to aim at Deqlan building 3 block towers - well my friends, the sky is the limit - Deqlan will build and build until each block has been put on the tower! He can also do quite a tricky fishy puzzle - you need to fish the pieces out with a fishing rod - he does this with such ease - Nannas face lights up at all the things Deqlan can now do, which he couldnt before she started the table work with him - she is SO proud, and mom I am so proud of you and i cant thank you enough for what you are doing with and for Deqlan, its priceless and Deqlan is going to reach his full potential because of you!

i still have to post the photos of Deqlans birthday party - but there are over 300, so its taking me a while to get through them all,but i promise sooner then later!

Have a lovely day everyone, God Bless and love
Mark Samm Deqlan Logan
REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS AND AGAIN I SAY REJOICE!

SURVIVOR-MADELYN BELL, USA

Summer Babe
Madelyn during treatment with her big sister

Another cutie pie, another story of hope and faith and trust...meet Madelyn.

Here is the beginning of Madelyns story:

Madelyn Grace Bell was born 7lbs 9oz and was 19 3/4 inches long. She has the feet of a 3 year old, but we figured that would work itself out. Everyone who saw her said what we knew, "She's perfect!". We took her home on September 22 at an average speed of about 25 mph.After she was home, everything was great. Her initial visits for post partum checkups all went well. On October 17, 2006, we noticed that her left eye was a little red and swollen. Having served in the Army as a medic and working for a few years in different intensive care units, I figured just what the doctor would order - rule out conjunctivitis though topical antibiotics.We followed this treatment for the defined period and saw no improvement. We asked to see an eye doctor and were referred. We visited the eye doctor and we continued the same treatment but changed topical antibiotics. We returned after a week when we were told by the doctor that it appeared to be getting better and to give it some time.With my background, I was OK with staying the course. My wife Sheila, however, was not as patient as I was. We called our pediatrician and got an opthalmic eye drop (as opposed to an ointment) to see if we could get better results and the physician obliged. Another week and and no improvement led my wife to request a visit with a second opthalmologist.On December 12, 2006 we visited Dr. Ed Cheeseman with the opthalmology group at Palmetto Richland and USC School of Medicine. I did not attend this appointment as I had to work. My wife was excited about the possibility of getting a new perspective on what ws going on with our daughter's eye and returning those beautiful eyes to normal. She called me at work at about 9:30 AM. She said that Dr. Cheeseman wanted to rule out Horner's syndrome. I had never heard of this, so I performed a quick web search. I scanned through and quickly determined that the root causes for this were all pretty significant. The most common cause in children Madelyn's age is injry to teh brachial plexus, a nerve in the sympthetic chain that affects innervation to the face and eye. The sympathetic nervous system is that which we don't control. Mdelyn's eye was "drooping", not swollen. Her pupils were not evenly dilated. Her left eye was not the same color as the right. We don't control these things willfully. Hopefully that explains it.I rushed down to the doctor's office to hear it for myself. When I got there, Dr. Cheeseman had given her 1 drop of Iopidine (aproclonidine) in each eye to test his diagnosis. When I arrived, Madelyn's eye was normal. Her pupil was dilated. The lids were equal. Unfortunately, this meant she did have Horner's syndrome.The doctor advised us that this is primarily the result of injury during delivery. She would have normal vision, and could possibly have plastic surgery to releive the drooping. That upset us because the psyche of a young child, especially a girl, is deeply affected by their appearance and self esteem. He also said that we needed to rule out any other causes. The primary one he felt was worthy of mentioning was a condition called neuroblastoma. We scheduled MRI scans of her head, nack, chest, and abdomen for Friday, 12/15/2006.That night, Madelyn was not herself. She was lethargic and cried terribly when she was not sleeping. Possesing a healthy appetite, we was concerned when she really didn't wake for feedings. We did not know at the tme what the drops were that she had been given, so we called the hospital and were connected with Dr. Cheeseman who advised us to take her to the children's ER at Palmetto Richland. She was admitted and watched until Thursday as she began to return to normal Wednasday night.We returned to the hospital on 12/15/2006 for the MRI scans. We sat impatiently awaiting Madelyn's return. She came back to us and was crying, so her recovery from the conscious sedation (chloral hydrate) was going well. Shela fed her and all was well. We were told that the scans with contrast could not be completed because Madelyn woke as they were to inject the contrast. I asked if we would need to come back Monday, and the nurse said, "They may have enough information". An incomplete test that finds nothing must be completed, so we were immediately concerned that something was wrong.Dr. Cheeseman cam in to speak to us and gave it to us straight out. Madelyn has neuroblastoma. We were devastated. He went on to explain that she had a tumor in her left chest that measured almost 4cm across in her middle back area. They suspected some local lymph node involvement. What almost stopped my heart was when we were told her liver was involved. We had read briefly about NB, but this meant something: it had spread to the other side of her body. I almost dropped her in grief as I exploded when I asked for clarification. "Do you mean tumors in her liver?", I said. When told yes, I was crushed.We were set up with a appointment with the pediatric oncologists on Monday, 12/18/2006 and managed to drive ourelves home after about an hour of just soaking this in and holding Madelyn tighter than ever before.This is the day our life changed forever. Subsequent posts will be made as often as we can to bring everyone up to date as contacting everyone is impossible. Feel free to make posts here in support of our baby girl.Thank you and God bless,The Bell Family

Initially Madelyn was diagnosed with Stage 4s, but later testing revealed she was in fact stage 4, and therefore required chemotherapy as part of her treament plan. She recieved 4 rounds of chemotherapy and the MIBG scan continued to light up slightly in her chest area, so it was decided to do another 4 rounds of chemo. Madelyn was declared NED in August 2007! Praise Our Lord!

Madelyn still continues to go for regular scan check ups, her latest being in August, and as you will see from her latest post, she remains NED and more scans are needed for the foreseeable future!

www.madelynbell.blogspot.com

We continue to pray for you Bell family and that your gorgeous Maddy will continue to remain NED forever and always! Sending you hugs and love and support always!

SURVIVOR, KEIRA GRACE BOWMAN, TEXAS, USA

The Bowman family
Gorgeous Keira!

Keira on her first day of chemo with over a hundred ducks from students and family and friends


This is the very first introduction we had into the world of neuroblastoma, other then ourselves. We sent our a prayer request for Deqlan, when he was just diagnosed, to a very strong Christian friend of ours, who happened to forward it on to some prayer friends in the USA. The very next day we got an email from her, saying that a little girl in the church, was recently diagnosed with the same cancer, and gave us a website address for her 'blog' - this was the first time i have ever gone into a blog, let alone understand what it was.







We opened the pages to be greeted to the beautiful little face of Keira. She was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma at the age of 10 months , on march 9 2007. The main tumor was in her chest and tests revealed had also spread to her bone marrow. She was classed as intermediate risk as the n myc gene was non amplified.







As we collected and Deqlan loved, and still loves Frogs, Keira and her family and friends started her family of Ducks!








Keira had chemotherapy and surgery and responsed very well. I wanted to share the post her parents did on the day they recieved wonderful news:

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.





Keira continues to have check up scans and from last i heard, she continues to do so well and thrive and remain to have no evidence of disease

I wanted to thank you Erin, Jason and Keira for always being there for us, all your support and prayers for Deqlan. For answering the thousands of questions i had, for teaching me how amazing and how strong our Faith is and for shining hope on the journey we went through. We hope you are well, and please let us know how you are doing? Please give loads of hugs to Keira, prayers , hugs and love always, from all of us



You can visit Keira's blog to read about her incredible journey - the blog is no longer updated, but you can read through the amazing faith and strength this family has and their trust in Our Lord which is such an amazing example to us all

http://www.keirabo.blogspot.com/