Got EBB?

Yesterday, Kate said to me, “Mama, I really wish I had one wish.” Not knowing where this was going I said, “Well, what would you wish for, Chickee?” I’m thinking she is going to say, a cute, fluffy puppy or a T.V. for her bedroom, which she continues to ask for over and over but never seems to get, or maybe even 100 American Girl doll items, which are her absolute favorite toys these days. She climbed up on my lap and looked at me with eyes full of wishful tears and said, “I wish Elizabeth would never have cancer. I just wish I could trade all my Christmas gifts for Elizabeth’s cancer to go away.” As I tightly hugged her, I started to cry without being able to stop. I’m sure she tasted my tears because I just couldn’t stop them from coming. They kept coming and coming and coming. I told her how she has such a special heart, more special than anyone I know and that she is such an amazing little girl and that she is the best sister anyone could ever ask for. Just tonight as I was tucking her into bed, Brooke and I had just given Elizabeth her nightly meds and chemo shot, Kate once again started crying and said how she wished that she could trade places with Elizabeth. She wished that she could take every medicine and shot in her place. This is coming from my seven year old daughter! My first reaction is, I am so blessed with such beauty in my life. My second reaction is, I hate that this is my daughter’s wish! This should never have to be a child’s wish. Never! CHILDHOOD CANCER is beep beep beep beep beep. You fill in the beeps. I HATE IT! I HAVE NEVER BEEN A HATER ABOUT ANYTHING. BUT, I HATE CHILDHOOD CANCER WITH MY ENTIRE SOUL! I will tell you childhood cancer has changed me. It has changed my husband. And it has changed my kids. I am a different person today than I was in August. My purpose in life is different. My dreams in life are different. What I want to accomplish in life today is so completely different than what I wanted to accomplish yesterday. I love my husband and children with my entire being. That is all I had ever wanted to be growing up, was the best wife and mother I could possibly be. I try my hardest to be that. I try to protect my family from hurt and pain and then BOOM…blindsided by cancer! I don’t understand it? I don’t get it at all! I don’t understand why our normal Monday, now consists of sitting in a clinic all ding dong day long? A clinic that is full of beautiful children with cancer that all may or may not be there the following week. This week, as I sat with Elizabeth in the PCH clinic, she received another blood transfusion. She was looking pretty ghostly white when we got there. I told her all we needed were a set of vampire teeth since she was getting blood today. She looked at me so disgusted and said, “Do I have to drink it?” I’m thinking bad Mommy, bad bad Mommy! So I immediately try to make it right with a, “Just kidding love bug.” As we sat down, she was telling her nurses about her T Swizzle experience, but not even a night like that can make what you see and hear in this place any better. On each side of us were kiddos receiving blood transfusions, as well. They both eventually had reactions to their blood that day. We were the lucky ones that received blood with no problems. It’s a normal day around the clinic with blood transfusions, little bald heads all lined up hooked to a pole that contains their chemotherapy, vomiting, and more vomiting, crying and more crying, social workers talking to families about counseling services because no matter how hard you try to handle it yourself, you just can’t. Why should this be a normal Monday for anyone? It’s a very terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Monday! So here it is…I still want to be the very best wife and mother I can possibly be and my army and I have the fight of our lives on our hands. So many of you have asked what you can do to help. I have a plan of attack I am currently putting together and will keep you posted very soon on the many ways you can help because NO CHILD SHOULD EVER HAVE TO WISH TO TRADE PLACES WITH HER SISTER BECAUSE SHE WOULD RATHER HAVE CANCER HERSELF INSTEAD OF HER BABY SISTER! And that’s that!

A little side note from Elizabeth this week…

I WISH…
to kick lymphoma’s buttCRACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There you have it. Cancer should be scared, very very scared!

WHAT WOULD YOU WISH FOR?

Best wishes,
Brooke, Heidi, Bryce, Kate, and Elizabeth

As many of you may know, my rockin’ rockstar kiddos have been raising some rockin’ amounts of money for The Ronan Thompson Foundation. Let me just tell you about beautiful Ronan Thompson. Ronan Thompson is a precious, sweet, innocent three year old boy whose life was devastatingly cut much too short because of childhood cancer. Ronan was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma in August of 2010. Almost a year to the day that my sweet Elizabeth was diagnosed with Lymphoma. Ronan’s battle with Neuroblastoma ended in May of 2011 just days before his 4th birthday, but his fight continues on. His mommy, Maya Thompson, has such a beautiful heart and has started a movement to make significant changes in this world with childhood cancer. Through The Ronan Thompson Foundation she is courageously raising awareness for childhood cancer and it’s about to go big! I can rockin’ feel it. Okay, so back to rockin’ Taylor Swiftness. On Tuesday, Maya Thompson received a phone call from Taylor Swifts peeps. Yes, that’s right TS called MT and boom gave her 5 tickets to Friday nights show!! So at that time, Maya decided instead of selling the tickets and making a rockin’ amazing amount of money for The Ronan Thompson Foundation she would reward my rockin’ amazing kids for working so rockin’ hard for childhood cancer awareness! Now for the VIP part, that would be Maya Thompson. She is a rockstar and a VERY IMPORTANT PERSON when it comes to childhood cancer. Her Rockstar Ronan blog has gotten the attention of rockin’ millions! One of which is Taylor Swift. Yep, that’s right to Maya’s unknowingness Ms. Taylor Swift has been reading Maya’s blog for over a year now! So Taylor invited Maya who invited us and that is rockin’ crazy! My girlies and I primped all day. We made frilly, fancy nancy signs that said T Swizzle Rocks and We (heart) T Swizzle. They were glittery and sparkly to say the least. We did nails, make-up, and planned rockin’ outfits. We also wrote a letter to Taylor telling her about Elizabeth. We also got one of E’s rockin’ “Beauty” t-shirts ready as well as one of her rockin’ rainbow bracelets. I must say Bryce was a rockin’ trooper for rockin’ it all day with us girlies. Bryce and his daddy were also going to the concert and had 4 floor tickets in the rockin’ 13th row. So Bryce invited his longtime friend Madelyn and her mom, Megan to come along. Megan and I have been planning Bryce and Maddie’s wedding since they were three months old. So I would say, Bryce kind of had his first date Friday night with parent supervision, of course. Anyways, we got to go backstage and the first person the girls got to meet was Taylor’s Dad. He talked with the girls for awhile and gave them a handful of Taylor’s rockin’ guitar picks to hand out! They were so rockin’ excited! Next we went into the meet and greet room, which was a rockin’ rainbow of colors. Drapes covered the ceiling, shabby chic furniture everywhere, birdcage accents, candid Taylor photos on the walls, and a spread of rockin’ yummy food. Elizabeth and Kate were instantly in love. Then in walks Taylor, “Hi I’m Taylor!” she said so sweetly yet peppy. She is so down to earth. She cried as she spoke of Ronan with Maya. And I cried, too. Her heart aches for this family as well as all the families out there battling childhood cancer. She gets how childhood cancer is devastating families and how things can be so different. I get the feeling she truly wants to help make a difference with it. She spoke with Kate and Elizabeth. They asked her if she had any pets? She said, she was glad they asked because she was thinking about getting a kitten. She asked the girls what color they thought she should get? Kate instantly said, “White!” And Elizabeth agreed! She told them about how 13 was her rockin’ lucky number and how she writes a different song lyric on her arm each night she performs. It was so rockin’ and surreal! We were starstruck! So starstruck we forgot to ask for an autograph! WHAT? My goodness gracious, how did we forget that? We were all just so completely in the rockin’ moment last night that we forgot. It was incredibly perfect watching my girlies so happy. For a moment, I think Elizabeth forgot about the cancer. So come to find out we did not just have rockin’ front row seats, we had three different rockin’ sitting areas. We could come and go in and out of the Pit as we pleased, and of course this was where little Miss Pinkalicious wanted to be the entire night. And I don’t blame her, it was the best rockin’ spot in the arena! We also had actual front row seats to sit in, as well. And finally, Taylor does a few rockin’ songs in the back of the arena, which we had front row seats for, too. During this part of the show she comes off stage and Hi Ho Cherry O, she hugged Kate and then came over to Elizabeth and gave her a rockin’ big cherry colored kiss on the cheek! This was a rockin’ highlight moment!! They were also on the jumbotron screen for everyone to see. It was so rockin’ amazing! E was known as the girl who got the kiss. After the concert as we were walking out, several people asked her if that was Taylor Swift’s lipstick? She replied with, “Yes it is and I’m never washing my cheek again.” She woke up this morning asking if it was still there. We sported our rockin’ Taylor Swift concert t-shirts all day today.

Well, I’m sorry I have been rockin your ear off. It’s just all so exciting. My kiddos had a once in a lifetime opportunity and it was ROCKIN’ ROCKSTAR!

Love you all,
Heidi, Brooke, Bryce, Kate and Elizabeth

But, that’s not all. The kids also rocked it in our front yard today. They ROCKED it GOOD! As promised, Elizabeth, Kate and Bryce were fundraising full force with their Super Duper Candy Scooper Shop featuring a Rainbow of candies and Rainbow Manicures. Although, there was no rain, they each had a pocket full of sunshine and were ready to make things happen with a rainbow of colors in Pop Rocks, Gumballs, Lemonheads, cherry rainbow and pink lemonade Swizzle Sticks, gigantic Jaw Breakers, Gummy Bears, rainbow heart cookies, and rainbow manicures. Have I mentioned Elizabeth LOVES rainbow anything? The proceeds of todays fundraising efforts will benefit The Ronan Thompson Foundation. The Ronan Thompson Foundation and The Garage Boutique for Kids are hosting a Rock the Runway Fashion Show Event. My 3 kiddos are all participating. Although they may not all model, they all 3 are certain they want to help raise money to help in the fight against Pediatric Cancer. These kiddos made BIG BIG accomplishments today! I would say a top accomplishment for each of them to date. Their goal for today was to raise $200.00 each for a total of $600.00. Are you ready for this? Are you ready to hear what my kiddos raised in our front yard to fight Pediatric Cancer? $1019.64!! In three hours, these determined children fought for their sister, they fought for their cousin, they fought for their friends, they fought for your family, they fought for our family, they fought for Ronan and all the other children who have won or lost their battles to childhood cancer. They fought hard and they fought proud! My husband and I are so completely impressed with how busy these little bees worked today. But we are not surprised at the results! You, our community, our family of friends are more than generous. We had a complete stranger drive up and give $100.00! Oh my SWEETNESS! We have a toothache tonight from all the sweetness. We are blessed, thankful, and just so happy for all the kindness, love and of course beauty that comes from within all of your hearts.

So whoop there it is! $1019.64 going to The Ronan Thompson Foundation.

You are beautiful,
The Blair’s

P.S. Elizabeth went back to school on Wednesday!!

Anyways, it was about 10:30am and Elizabeth was no longer feeling like P Diddy. Her speech was starting to slur to the point where I could not understand what she was saying, and the right side of her little bitty body was not working. She couldn’t walk and she couldn’t talk. I called my husband, who called the doctor, who said, CALL 911! Elizabeth was showing signs of a stroke. The fire department arrived at our house within minutes as they monitored her, until the ambulance arrived to take her to PCH. Just as we were leaving, the police showed up at about the same time to take a report on the theft of our tires. WOW! Never a dull moment around here.

We arrived at PCH where they did an emergency MRI. Elizabeth could not get the sleepy medicine because she ate cheetos for breakfast, therefore, she would have to hold really still as they did it awake. I had no doubt she could do it! Daddy had no doubt she could do it! The doctors had not doubt she could do it! And of course, she did it! I never doubt this child for a second. She is so amazing! She is more than cool, more than cute, and so much more than courageous! Words don’t even begin to describe how incredibly strong Elizabeth is. I mean her middle name ain’t Brooklyn for nothin’! So what was initially believed to be a stroke was an uncommon complication with a new chemotherapy she started last week. She was admitted into the intensive care unit at PCH and by 4:00am the next morning she began to regain strength in her right side and her speech slowly started to come back. Her right side woke up and today Elizabeth is doing great. If fact, she is doing so great, she is home from the hospital. I personally feel like I could sleep for three days straight, but she is full of energy and going back to ballet tomorrow. She is so excited and we are so excited for her!

The last time Elizabeth was in the hospital she made a new friend, Mia. Mia also has cancer and Mia’s mommy, well, she is super duper strong! They have been going through this for over a year now. Mia’s mommy, Sandra and I share a mutual friend, which is how we heard about each other. Sandra and Mia came to the hospital to say hello and introduce themselves. Well, can you believe Mia was admitted the day after Elizabeth and in the room directly across the hall this week! Although it’s no fun to be in the hospital, it does make it a little better when you have a friend to spend time with. Elizabeth and Mia had many laughs and good times, they watched videos on the Ipad, Mia’s mommy gave a fantasmic light show with glow sticks in every color (maybe better than the one at Disneyland), they blinged out their hospital bracelets with rhinestones and Mia had the same “Love Heart Glitter” that Elizabeth bought on her shopping spree last week. So of course, I was immediately sent home to retrieve hers and in the morning there was glitter flying everywhere!! You would have thought there were glitter fairies flying around at PCH. Mia definitely helped Elizabeth on so many levels this week. And I hope Elizabeth did the same for her. That’s what friends are for. I know I keep saying this but we are so grateful for everyone’s help and support during this very difficult time. We are sending much love to all our wonderful and amazing friends and family tonight, for helping us on so many levels and well…

Sweet Dreams and I hope all of you wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy,
-Elizabeth Brooklyn Blair

Woo Hoo,
The Blair’s

P.S. Elizabeth got her prize for taking the “Yucky” medicine. It was her own IPad! She loves it! Oh and I’m not pregnant that was just a joke:)

Did I mention, we had to move this week?