Samantha's Medical Relief Fundraiser

See Sammy's story in her words here:http://youtu.be/5ER0S-0fnKQ


Sammy's story the short version in her Mother's words.

December 4th 2007 our lives were forever changed. Samantha was taken to the doctor for what we thought was a very bad stomach virus. We were sent over to the ER where after hours of testing we were coldly told in front of our daughter your child has cancer. Just as imtyping these words tears stream down my face like it was yesterday. My first thoughts were kids don’t get cancer this guymust be crazy andwe need toget the heck out of here. I then lost it right there in front of my child and her father who was in shock himself. She began to cry and at that moment with everything in me I stood up and said we are going to fight this.

Samantha was admitted and a biopsy was done the next morning and it was confirmed a few days later that Samantha had a wilms tumor on her right kidney that went up her vena cava into her atrium. We were told our daughter only had about a 40% chance of beating this cancer. After a couple of months in the hospital and several rounds of chemo Samantha was ready for surgery. February 2008 Sammy was in surgery for over 8 hours with two surgeons. She had her right kidney removed by one while the other did open heart surgery removing the tumor in her atrium and vena cava. She then had more chemo and radiation and kicked cancers behind. She became known as the miracle girl around the hospital. Sammy was in remissionjust 10days shy offive years and we praise God for every single day of it.

May 18th 2013:

Samantha began complaining of not feeling well , had no appetite andwasn’t able to use the restroom. After being told by doctors 3 times that she is just constipated they finally ordered a sonogram of her tummy. After her sonogram the tech told us to go back to the doctor’s office right away. We get up there and they say something doesn’t look right and we would like to admit her and get a CT Scan done right away. Later that evening we were told the cancer had returned. This time the tumor was on her kidney bed , wrapped itself around her liver and attached to her aorta.

August 2013- July 2014:

The day Samantha should have started the 5th gradewith her friendsshe is in the OR fighting for her life. The surgeon removed the baseball size tumor from her kidney bed and 40% of her liver thenas he attempted to remove the mass attached to her aorta Sammy began to bleed to death. In order to save her life the doctor had to immediately sew her up. Samantha had more chemo, radiation and a stem cell transplant hoping to further shrink the mass with no luck. They continued to monitor the mass via quarterly scans and felt maybe it is just dead tissue. They said while she is not out of the woods yet we feel comfortable to say she is in remission.

August 2014

We were told that her scans show signs of newgrowth and that the mass is inoperable and that we should expect it to spread to her lungs next. We were devastated that we werepretty much told she wasn’t going to make it. We contacted St. Jude and had her file sent over there for review and they agreed with everything we were being told but suggestedthe next set of scans be aPET scan and a close eye be kept on her.

November 2014

PET scan showed no signs of new growth and everything appears stable. The scan does detect heat however and we were told anything over a 3 is cancer and Sammy shows a 6. They wanted to do a biopsy the day after Christmasbut I told them no something inside said let’s just wait a little longer.

During thepast few months Sammy has been feeling great. She is in school with her friends, taking non-contact karate, working on her artistic skillsand following her dream of being a ballerina. A beautiful ballerina that just went into pointe shoes I must add.

February 2015

Our new insurance company will not cover the cost of another PET scan so they had to do an MRI this time, so measurements could be off. The MRI shows the tumor is slightly larger but we were told not to worry. He feels it best we be still and watch her andnot aggravate the mass with a biopsy. He did say we should go ahead and remove her port because it has been in a while and he is very concerned about blood clots and the risk ofinfection. He said if we need to put a new one in later we will deal with that then. She will continue to be watched closely and scanned every three months.We are thankful for this news andforeach day God has given us with our precious angel. If God wants us to be still we will be still and trust in him as long as he wants.

The financial impact of all of this is unbelievable we owehundreds ofthousands in medical bills with more to come.We cannot seem to get our heads above water and since we are working people we can’t seem to get any type of government aid. Any help would be greatly appreciated and will be used strictly for Samantha's current and futuremedical bills. Please keep our family lifted in prayer. May God bless you!

Thanks,
Misty