The day Dezirae was diagnosed with cancer was one of the worst days of my life. Profound I know! Trying to read and process the chemo consent was beyond torture.
It read something like this….both your child’s disease and the treatment can result in death.
Side affects can be devastating and include heart disease, kidney damage, hearing loss and the list goes on and on. In the past I had often wondered “What would I do”….if my child had cancer?
Well it turns out the truth is you don’t have many options! You can get a second, third and 9th opinion, you can flee the country to pursue an alternative treatment or choose an alternative treatment here and lose custody of your child!
So chemo it was for us. It was agony to sign papers consenting for my child to be given POISON!! I can’t describe how helpless I felt when they hung the first bag of chemo. It was crushing!
After the first round of chemo(you may remember Dez puked for 28 hours straight) I hated chemo more than ever!
It didn’t take long before I came to a shocking and harsh reality. I know it would rip my heart out to lose the sweet girl who made me a mama……but not for one second would I chose for her to endure the agony of chemo just so I have a little more time with her
Week after week I packed our bags to take one of the most precious gifts God gave us to get more of the nasty stuff. I pray that not one mama reading this ever has to put her heart through this.
As much as I have hated watching Dezirae suffer through each round of chemo and it’s nasty side affects, it has been the only predictable thing in our lives for the last 7+ months! While we want very much to be excited about the end of chemo it actually comes with very mixed emotions!
Praising God that Dezirae doesn’t have to endure the short term side affects of chemo! Exalting our Lord and Savior for carrying us through thus far!
And yet now the one predictable thing, albeit nasty, is gone! We have had so many major changes in just over a year! We are standing on shaky ground! Our brains know this is good and yet even good changes that lead into the unknown can leave you feeling quite uncertain!
So I sit here desperately wanting to share in your excitement that chemo is done. I fully trust the Lord and have PEACE in his plan. That being said, I am a realist!
The survival rate for Osteosarcoma patients is 70% without metastasis, 30% with! (We do NOT know which category she is in). 40% of Osteosarcoma patients relapse. No advances have been made in Osteosarcoma treatment in the past 30 years! There are lifetime maximum doses of chemo……Dez has reached at least one of those!
God has greatly grown my faith through this! Never once have I questioned “why” Dezirae! I knew from day one that it was her because her spirit will touch more lives than any of our other children! God has used Dez and her journey through cancer! He may not be done!
One more complicated layer of this is…..we are leaving the family we have known and lived with the last months! Some celebrating their child being in remission along with us, some reeling from a new diagnosis or relapse and others simply fighting to keep their child comfortable as they pray for peace and watch their baby slip into the arms or Jesus!
I know this post has a lot of me in it! None of this is about me or Dez! It’s about every single family here, every healthcare person, but most of all it’s about GOD!
He is ever present in every single detail! He is the ONLY one worthy of GLORY in this journey! He has made it possible for Dezirae to shine His light through Cancer!!
Keep Me and Love Me lol 
And also from the beginning Desiree had to simply trust God and also her parents to make the right decisions for her. No other choice. Praying she will continue to successfully recover and your family will adjust well to another ‘normal’
And know, we will continue to pray for you all. What a hard journey you are on. We care very deeply, no judgement here. None of us know for sure what we would attempt to do. God is working through the life of sweet Dez and all of you. How we would like to lift your load more. Lifting you up in the care of our dear Jesus. Much love to you all!