Charlotte's Journey

  First of all Charlotte remains CLEAR with no evidence of disease! Second of all it was the “Best scan day ever!” according to Charlotte and there have been so many scan days…but yesterday she got to bring GIFTS she helped to pick out to Duke Children's Hospital from Be The Rainbow Foundation! Thanks to all of you and your generosity, we could help some special kids, their siblings, and parents while they face childhood cancer💕🌈 Thank you all for all of your love and prayers…she gets 6 months until her next evaluation! With each scan, a mountain and a milestone. She will keep going, keep moving forward and shining that light of hers

https://youtube.com/shorts/vb8-dATqrJ0?feature=share I had just finished telling Charlotte I felt a rainbow coming on after her appointments at Duke Children’s today and then one appeared. Charlotte said “Hi God!” I believe she will always feel He is with her and isn’t that a true gift.  The video and photo is from 5 years ago YESTERDAY when we had a party at Duke Children’s to celebrate the END of 18 months of cancer treatment for our Charlotte! While waiting for scans, a musician set up their violin and started playing “Somewhere over the rainbow” right in front of us. So many God winks along our journey to heal Charlotte. We believed it was over but the cancer started to come back almost 2 years after this video. More was to be asked of Charlotte and our family. 5 years is the “magic number” in the stage IV, high risk Neuroblastoma world. That is when they stop monitoring for recurrence. Charlotte is working her way to this 5 year milestone and thank you for praying with us that we

 Well village, the week is finally here. The first time we have gone 6 months since scans and Charlotte will have her Duke check up appointments and scans Thursday and Friday this week. Most of you know Brian and I tread water during these weeks with an indescribable feeling in the pit of our stomachs. It’s not because we don’t believe or our faith waivers, but it’s because of what we’ve seen and done and what we’ve watched Charlotte endure and the fear that maybe just maybe it really isn’t all over. Hope is the only thing stronger then fear.  The last time we pushed scans back even a little was to 4 months in 2019 and the doctors found a new tumor just starting to grow into her femur. It was Neuroblastoma that returned or never died and no one knows where it came from nor where else it might also be hiding. Charlotte beat it back again but standard care is scans for 5 years and this cycle will be 2.5 years off all treatment and 3 years since her scans showed all clear. We are half way

I remember the day Brian went bald for St. Baldricks. 2 years to the month later Charlotte would become so sick and be diagnosed. Never could we of imagined he would be doing something that could help fund research that could help our own baby girl. 2 years later, Parker would start his own page for St. Baldricks to raise funds for pediatric cancer research and he too would buzz off his hair in honor of his sister. So when you create your own page for Be The Rainbow Foundation, you are helping others in ways you may never have imagined. We are under way with many people starting their own fundraising page during this month of September in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. We are starting to get some pictures of hair dares being completed!  We wanted to start a simple fundraiser that anyone could do from anywhere, anyone could customize to their own comfort level and have some fun, and to help us GROW by sharing with all of those in your own social networks. We are under way du

  September is Childhood Cancer Awareness month and this picture brings back a flood of memories. It was one of the only ones Charlotte let me snap when she lost all of her hair for a second time when her cancer returned. She should have been with her Kindergarten class that day but she was hospitalized for over 2 weeks because she needed high dose chemo once again to knock down what was trying to grow and take her away. It looks like we are having a ball. But my stomach was a ball of knots. She would soon find a hat that helped her find some confidence because she wasn’t 3 anymore and she felt strange without hair. She would also be very very sick for a period of time after this picture as the chemo coarse through her veins, helping to give her a chance to grow up. There was once a time we didn’t have a child with cancer either. Please help us help the children and families who face this. I cringe when someone says the words “rare” in the same sentence of pediatric cancer when I know