The Websters

I contacted Donna Araiza recently regarding the upcoming Wings Of Angels Bowl-a-Thon and asked if there were any specific children that this year’s event was going to be focusing on helping.  As many of you may know they help so many families in the area, but with each event they try to raise funds to help those that are going through current treatment and really could use the support of family, friends and the community.

This year’s Bowl-a-Thon will be for two little girls suffering from cancer and undergoing current treatment.

Here’s the background information Donna provided:

“Right now our plans are to help a four year old little girl diagnosed with leukemia.  She’s been going through treatment about 8-10 months but really suffered a set back and spent 40 days in the hospital from just before Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve.  Her dad is self employed and mom is working as much as she can. 

The other (and I haven’t asked them yet) is a beautiful nine year old little girl who was one of our kids for
two years, five years ago.  She relapsed this month and has started another round of chemo.  They are at our spaghetti feed every year, her dad is a fireman for the city of Redding.  They are a private family and are currently in the hospital.  This one breaks my heart!”

We really want to help as much as we can and need your help in raising money.  We want to thank all of you that have already sent donations.  

The Bowl-a-Thon is April 4th and we are asking again for our friends and family to help us raise donations for the event.  Last year our team was second in the total amount of funds raised. Hopefully this year you will be able to help us be in the running again. Please remember this organization is a non-profit and therefore donations are tax deductible.  We realize times are tough financially for everyone right now, but we’re hoping that you can give a little even if it’s only $5 or $10. 

Here are the details to donate:

1.  All donations are tax deductible

2.  Two ways to donate (make sure to include ‘Team Webster’ in your donations):

- Make Check Payable to ‘Wings of Angels’ and note ‘For Team Webster’ and mail to

The Websters, 18962 River Ranch Rd. Anderson, CA 96007

- Go to Online Donation (click here) to make a donation via Paypal. Make sure to enter ‘For Team Webster’.

Thanks so much for all your prayers for Grace and support you give to us!

Has it really been over a month since we’ve posted?  Unbelievable how time flies!  We have 2 things for you.  The first is an update on our sweet Grace and the second is a request for all of you to help Perry and I raise money for Wings of Angels (see the end of this post to see how you can help us help).

We were in Sacramento January 23rd - 26th to meet with two of Grace’s specialists (endocrinologist & neurologist) and to have a new Physical Therapy assessment completed.

The appointment with the endocrinologist went well and he was amazing at how tall Grace has gotten since our visit last August/September.  She grew an inch and a half!  He’s made some modifications to her DDAVP dosages as we had a hiccup in our ‘normalcy’ when Grace’s sodium level jumped to 165.  This is after months of everything moving along so smoothly, but hey, it’s DI, so we’ve learned by past experience, that just when you think you have it figured it out that’s when it either drops or spikes.  Anyways, the adjustments to the morning dose seems to have leveled things out again and we’ve reached ‘normalcy’ again.  Next steps are for a full blood work up to check her hormone levels and thyroid to make sure her current doses of meds is still appropriate.

The appointment with the neurologist went great.  We received the okay to begin weaning her off the last of the anti-seizure medications.  She’s been off Tegretol since Thanksgiving and we’ve really noticed an increase in energy, balance and in her expressive speech.  Needless to say were are excited to begin the weaning of Kepra and how getting her off of it will improve other areas of her development.  We are doing this weaning very slowly as we don’t want to take any chances that residual seizure activity takes place.  We’ll keep you posted on this as we progress.

We’re working with the school on providing services to Grace to make her successful in the school environment.  She’s currently receiving speech, OT, adaptive PE from the school.  There is a dispute regarding physical therapy needs and as result we had an outside group assess Grace.  Let’s just say the results from the school are completely out of sync with the assessment we had done privately.  So, we’ll be meeting with the school again to figure out next steps.  Wish us luck!

Now here’s where we are asking all of you that have been so supportive to us during the past 4yrs to help us help Wings of Angels.  For those of you not familiar with them all I can say is they have gone beyond the call of duty to help our family and other families with children suffering from life threatening illnesses.  Last year was our first chance to start giving back to them and to pass on the support to other families.  Last year our team, which includes Perry’s parents, succeeding in raising nearly $4,000.  Our team was 2nd in amount of funds raised.  We’d like to match or surpass that for this years event on April 4th, 2009.  We need you to make this happen!!

1.  All donations are tax deductible

2.  Two ways to donate (make sure to include ‘Team Webster’ in your donations):

- Make Check Payable to ‘Wings of Angels’ and note ‘For Team Webster’ and mail to

The Websters, 18962 River Ranch Rd. Anderson, CA 96007

- Go to Online Donation (click here) to make a donation via Paypal. Make sure to enter ‘For Team Webster’.

We realize this is a tough time of year for everyone, but please realize there are several children in our area that are undergoing painful medical treatments and the support they get from Wings of Angels helps them make these treatments possible.

Last but not least here are some recent pictures of the Webster crew:

Thanks again for everyday of prayers and support!

We thought Grace’s birthday was a great day to give you an update on how she’s doing in regards to rehab from surgery and progress she’s making in preschool.  We’ve also included a few pictures at the end of this post showing just how much our little Grace has grown over the past 5yrs.

Preschool has been a fantastic thing for Grace.  Not only has it helped her physically in her post op recovery, but it’s done wonders for her socially. Before surgery Grace was just a typical 3yr old little girl.  She was silly, sassy and active.  She lost quite a bit of that after surgery and from the long hospital stay.  Although we were starting to see glimpses of our silly little Grace before she started school, we are amazed at just how being in a classroom with all the other children has done for her.  She seems like she is now feeling more comfortable and confident in her little body and her personality is more relaxed and playful. 

 

She absolutely LOVES going to school each day and seeing her friends, playing outside and showing off her daily choice of jewelry to the teachers and aides. 

 

This past weekend we actually heard a true, genuine belly laugh from Grace.  It was a deep Santa type laugh and made us smile and be grateful for the progress she’s made and look forward to what the next few months and year have in store for her and her journey.

 

We haven’t mentioned sodium levels in awhile as her levels have been in range for quite awhile, however, last week Grace had a really bad day and we even had to pick her up from school.  The following day we did a sodium check and it was very high (165).  We’ve subsequently had to do two additional checks and she’s been consistently 150.  Although this is way out of range (135-145), it’s a more tolerable level for Grace.  As proud and amazed parents, we have to tell you that Grace is one tough cookie. She didn’t cry or flinch during any of the blood draws unlike her parents.

 

 

 

 

 

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and is having fun getting ready for Christmas and the New Year. 

Here are some photos of the kids visiting Santa Claus:

We will now be using this blog to update everyone on our little family. If you were subscribed to Grace’s Care Page or if we thought you would like to be subscribed we took the liberty to subscribe you to our new blog.  You will receive an email notification when we post updates, including Grace’s recovery, if you wish not to receive these emails please Unsubscribe to the blog by following the directions in the email or unsubscribe on the blog page.  Here are some recent photos of our kids!

Welcome to our new Webster Family Blog!