We went to MD Anderson yesterday and met with Dr. Rytting. He was very frank with us and gave little hope for Danielle. He told us to go back to Texas Childrens and do the Phase 1 Trail he called the Hedge Hog Inhibitor. He said there has been some success with adults. He thinks the tumor cells found in the spinal fluid are from the original tumor and that the cells are usually so small the radiologist can not see them on the MRI. He also told us about a Dr Brown that can take tissue blocks from the tumor removed in December and he can study the activated pathways to determine which chemo drugs would be best to try. This is not approved by insurance and will cost a couple thousand dollars, but he thinks we should do this.
Faith is believing without seeing and I beleive Danielle has been healed no matter what the doctors say. Mark 11:23-24 (New King James Version) For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them
For two days after that I couldn’t get out of my head that they were questioning to do a test that cost $2K and it laid heavy on my heart. I knew the medical bills had piled up but when you question spending money on something I thought they must be really high. I began thinking what can I do??? That is when the thought entered my mind to do a garage sale. I contacted a mutual cheer friend that is very close with the Bacon’s asking what I could do and she turned me on to a big fundraiser that was in the works. I kept suppressing my thoughts of doing something on my own knowing that I couldn’t orchestrate something to the size of the current fundraiser. I attended the fund raiser in late October which was a huge success! Preliminary numbers showed they raised about $75,000. While at the fundraiser I talked to Danielle’s mom to hear how treatment was going and how they were doing. Danielle had been on the trial pill for a couple of weeks and I have already told you how she mentioned the Doctors said this pill probably wouldn’t help Danielle but it would help other kids down the road (gulp). She also told me in this conversation that she had been turned onto Dr. Burzynski who has healed cancer with natural drugs. But the cost was so high….in the $130,000 range. In her eyes I could see the faith that God has healed Danielle’s body. In my heart I sensed my doubt and the thought of “this is your only hope…do it!!!”
I went home that night and again had this feeling of I need to do something. The next day in church the pastor talked on When God speaks to us. He spent a few minutes on determining when God speaks to you. You know that nudging in your heart you feel, you know that constant thought that never goes away, you know that feeling of trying to tape your mouth shut because you really don’t know if you should speak? That’s God. And when God speaks to you…you obey! You don’t ask why? You don’t think “but they’ll think I’m silly”, you don’t say but it’s too much work….YOU OBEY! I knew then that God was wanting me to do this garage sale for Danielle. Every little bit helps.
So I sent out an email that day (before the Devil could make me change my mind) asking all of my friends for their “treasures”. I only had a date. I didn’t know who would help me…I didn’t even know where I was going to have it but I knew God would work out all of those details if I obeyed. And let me just say…he did. We were able to have it at a storage facility in a place that has a flea market there every Saturday and Sunday…it was instant people and it was a place to store everything as they were delivered to my house. And can I say that I have very generous friends. I even had strangers that were bringing things to my house. This story just touches hearts. By Tuesday I was thinking “what have I gotten myself into?” I continued to ask God to keep my focus off of all of the work and instead on my obedience and the help that I was giving to Danielle.
I had several people offer to help but I wasn’t sure how much help I would need on the day of. So I planned on Jennifer, myself and Calli and Carson running it and an extra bonus was when Joanna showed up! The girls were sooooo excited. They made signs the night before to hang up, a donation box with Danielle’s story on it and some cookies to sell too.
Jennifer had told me that my faith in humanity would be destroyed on Saturday but I don’t think it was. I think of the man who owed me 75 cents and handing me a $5 said “but I wanted to spend $5” with a big smile on his face. I think of the lady who befriended the girls spending 30 minutes in their toy bin and not spending a dime but walking by the donation box and placing a $10 in it. And then we had the other vendors in the area that realized we were selling things cheap and would come buy stuff from us only to walk around to the front and put it on their tables for sale. That was just comical.
The traffic was much less than I expected but we still raised $1128.20. And we still have a lot left over. I think everyone involved felt blessed for giving and I had fun on Saturday! I’ve got to decide what to do with the leftovers but for now I feel good about obeying God in this task.
On a similar note, Danielle is not doing well. She has started the drugs with Burzynski but the tumors are causing severe headaches and leg pains. She had to get a shunt put in her brain last week. Please praise that these new drugs would start shrinking the tumors FAST so the pain can go away.
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