A Little Something Extra

Sunday, October 24, 2010

31 for 21... please pray for Lois

I'm sitting here watching the Packers game and catching up on a bit of my blog reading and doing the MOPS directory (you can call me the multitasking queen, as I'm also in control of the remote to fast forward through the commercials since we're watching the game on DVR because we had to put the kids to bed).

Anyway... I was just brought to tears when I went to Catherine's blog.  Her daughter, Lois (a member of the designer genes club, aka she has Down syndrome), just turned 3 years old a week ago.  Lois has leukemia.  Initially, it was the high-cure-rate kind and she went into remission.  But she relapsed.  Her only chance of survival is getting into remission again and then getting a BMT (bone marrow transplant).  After each round of chemo, she gets tested to see if she's in remission.

This is Lois:

Lois is not in remission.  So she has to go through another round of chemo.  Each round is more intense than the previous one.  Each one gives a higher chance for the chemo to kill something good in her body, not just what's bad.

Please pray for Lois and her family.  No child should have to go through this.  And no parent should have to either.  But our kids with this extra 21st chromosome have a 10-15 times higher likelihood of getting leukemia than a typical kid.  But I'm sure that knowing that doesn't make it any easier when it happens to YOU.

2 comments:

Kris Delaney said...

Thanks for this update Jennie. We will be praying for sweet Lois.

paige said...

oh... so hard.
Jennie, i'm reminded of a question that i have had for awhile.
Why does ds seem to affect people so differently? It seems that especially verbally there is this huge wide spectrum... or with heart issues - some children with ds don't have any, right? & some have a LOT... (sorry - rambly question... )