#TeamCharlotte-Charlotte's Prayer Quilt

On Monday, July 24, 2017, Charlotte was scheduled to have her first chemotherapy.

I had made Charlotte's quilt top quite a while before but had an urgency to now get it done. It was one of those things put in the "finish" pile. I took her quilt to her the morning before that first chemo. 

My prayer quilts and cloths are the sign of my faith in God. Many prayers have gone up and will continue for her healing. Prayers for healing go into my quilts as they are being made. I call them my "stitched prayers".  No, there is no healing power in those pieces of cloth but in the power of our Almighty God. 

Hebrews 11:1 tells us: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Charlotte's quilt illustrates the substance of things hoped for which is her healing and is evidence of the "not seen" healing that is going on in that little body. 

Before I left the house with the quilt that morning more prayers were added by Melinda [Charlotte's grandmother-my youngest daughter and her second cousins:Ian, Hannah, Blake and Brandon]

Charlotte had a terrible reaction to the chemo, so scary. While Travis comforted her he grabbed her quilt and put over her covering her with our prayers. 

That episode is
@:  http://cwainscott.blogspot.com/2017/08/teamcharlotte-chemo-starts.html.

#TeamCharlotte articles are my way of sharing Charlotte's journey through this experience, my way of working through this heartbreak of watching this baby in all this and to show her later what she had been through.

Please keep her in your prayers, thank all of you so much.

Charlotte's great, grandmother
Carolyn Wainscott

#TeamCharlotte-Chemo Starts

#TeamCharlotte--Article No. 1-Charlotte is air lifted to Children's Hospital in Cincinnati
#TeamCharlotte-The Wait --Article No. 2-the week's wait for diagnosis, spinal tap
#TeamCharlotte-The Diagnosis --Article No. 3-Charlotte has leukemia

Now on Monday, July 24, 2017 Charlotte is started on her first round of chemotherapy, Pegaspargase, and as you can see she is very alert and wary of all the preparation.

Mamaw Melinda and I were there along with Erin and Travis. Erin had to go down the hall to check on some things when the nurses started bringing in the chemo prep equipment earlier than scheduled. 

Travis asked the nurse if they were ready to start and before he could finish a text to Erin things started going terribly, terribly wrong instantly.  

Charlotte started turning red and breathing hard. She looked like someone had poured scalding water on her and I screamed something is going wrong! Then she started screaming. The nurses came running in and shut off the pump. I shouted at Travis to get her up she was going to choke.

I didn't know until later that Travis had the forethought to grab the tube and pinch it to stop the chemo flow. I couldn't even get up out of my chair for a long time, my knees would have buckled under me seeing that child going through that. 

She cried for some time but Travis finally got her soothed down. She was given Benadryl to counter the reaction to the chemo. 

When the Pegaspargase was chosen as Charlotte's first line of defense, doctors told Erin and Travis that only 5% have a reaction from the drug. After Charlotte calmed down the nurses said this is the first time in 6 years this has happened but it happened to Charlotte. 

Folks-it was a really scary time.  This great, granny's heart breaks all the time for this baby. Please keep her in your prayers for her to be healed. 

in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven    Matt 18:10 (KJV)

This verse assures me that Charlotte's angels are lifting her up to her Heavenly Father for his care and healing. 

May God bless you
Carolyn Wainscott

#TeamCharlotte-The Diagnosis

On Thursday,  July 13, 2017, my great, granddaughter, Charlotte was airlifted to Children's Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio in critical condition if I remember right [and a lot of times my memory fails miserably] in septic shock as I wrote of @: http://cwainscott.blogspot.com/2017/08/teamcharlotte.html. 

In the following days Charlotte's blood count was near zero but after a transfusion rose to a little over 8 with hopes of her little system kicking in to produce blood cells. We were told it was a virus that had depleted her system and we held on to that hope. When her count dropped again she was given another transfusion but when that didn't produce positive results for her a spinal tap was done on Friday, July 21. 

 through  the hospital hustle and bustle:

Tuesday, July 25, the doctors told Erin and Travis that the spinal tap had revealed that Charlotte has leukemia. There is nothing I can say here to convey how this kind of news hits other than its like being hit by a sledge hammer and our hearts have been in a vise grip since.

Your world flip flops. Your 2 year old baby has leukemia. She was fine 2 weeks ago. She was up running around, laughing and giggling and now she is bedridden and you don't know if or where she may be hurting because she can't tell you. 

Cancer has its own entity and when it rears its ugly head it takes over your whole world. It is the first thing you think of when you wake up whether it is 2 a.m., 5 a.m. or 7 a.m. and especially so when it is your baby girl. It is the last thing in your thoughts if you can go to sleep and then nudges you awake to make sure you haven't forgotten its presence. Cancer is very selfish that way, it wants to take over and rule your life. 

When we get over this initial shock, when we can realize the doctors have said there is more than 95% success rate, when our Little Sunshine comes out from behind that cloud of confusion of wondering what in the world is happening in her world  then #TeamCharlotte will get on with this "new normal".

9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.       Luke 11:8-10

God said "Ask" so we have. We have asked Him for Charlotte's complete healing and are trusting His Word.

May God bless you

Carolyn Wainscott 

#TeamCharlotte-The Wait

For #TeamCharlotte I am going to try to keep up with Charlotte's  experiences in this journey.  In the first #TeamCharlotte post, I shared a little about the beginning of Charlotte's saga with what may be a 2-3 year treatment for leukemia. I have seen other children, prayed for other children, made prayer quilts for other children never expecting to go through this with one of my own. At this point I am having to rely on others for prayer because I can't seem to come up with the right words for her.  

On Thursday, July 13, 2017, Charlotte was airlifted to Children's Hospital in Cincinnati from the er. Her daddy, Travis, flew out of here when we got the word she was being transported but I stayed here.  

The best and most I can do in these times is pray and get others to join me. A request was put on my timeline on Facebook "Urgent prayer request please, I don't know what is going on but my great, granddaughter, Charlotte is being airlifted to Children's Hospital" Then the same request was put on "Squares of Faith" [a faith based group of quilters on Facebook that I will probably never meet face to face]. I have done this often with other situations and within a short time there are many praying and it was the same this time.  

Her blood count was dangerously low but she made it through the night. The consensus was that the antibiotic she had been on for a rash had depressed her immune system and when she contracted a virus she couldn't fight it off. Charlotte had been sent home 2 days before from the doctor's office with this "virus" She was given a blood transfusion and the blood count went up to 8 something with the goal of raising it to 13. 

Friday, July 14, Charlotte was mostly sedated and sleeping so we were just in and out of her room watching her and trying to stay out of the way. She screamed every time she saw doctors and nurses and that was every few minutes it seemed. 

Saturday, July 15, she was awake more and being occupied with her Mommy's and Daddy's familiar cell phone photos and videos but it was hard to see her swelled as she was. It was good to see her alert though. 

Being at the hospital is wearying, isn't it? Especially under these circumstances. There was a prayer vigil for a young man named Jonathan who was critical after a wreck on his motorbike on July 1. I was just too tired to go I thought but finally got myself together. My daughter, Donna, would drive me and I was so pleased that my granddaughter, Heather, and her 4 children were going also. It was such a blessed evening. Originally the vigil was to be held at the hospital in Dayton, Ohio where Jonathan was but it expanded to several churches and other sites as the home of my sister, Shirley, where we were. Essentially there were prayers being sent up from all over the world for Jonathan so we put Charlotte's name into the mix also.

I must tell you that Jonathan's family had been given little hope for his recovery but has rallied and has been transferred to a center for rehabilitation. The Jonathan that doctors predicted would be little more than a vegetable if he lived is now speaking and writing his name. Jonathan was put in the hands of The Great Physician who  is in charge. 

Charlotte has been put in His hands also and we are believing in her complete healing. 

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Matt 18:20

We are gathered together spiritually for Charlotte as we gathered for Jonathan. 

God bless you
Carolyn Wainscott

#TeamCharlotte

Cancer has reared its ugly head again in my family-this time it is my great, granddaughter, Charlotte,  who is only 2 years old. Five years ago my husband, his brother and sister passed away within a few months of each other due to cancer and we found that my step son, Rick, had cancer 5 months after my husband was gone. He fought the disease for 2 years but we lost him in July, 2o14. I had my second bout with breast cancer in the spring of 2014 so you can see we are very familiar with the disease but it can be expected in adults-not so in babies.  

I took these photos a few days after her 2nd birthday [June 10]. The dress was bought especially for her 2 year photos. [I must tell you she is not a frills and lace kind-a-gal and was none too thrilled for Mamaw to put this on her]. 

For several weeks I had a deep concern for Charlotte, a foreboding that I couldn't shake. Then on July 13 she was air lifted to Children's Hospital in Cincinnati from the er. The doctor who had treated Charlotte in the er visited in her room and told her parents that she was the sickest little girl he had ever seen besides accidents and cancer patients. 

Charlotte's first diagnosis was thought to be a virus. She had been on an antibiotic that depleted her immune system so she was overly susceptible to the virus and her blood count went up but then back down so a spinal tap was taken and the next few days were some of the longest I have ever had waiting for the results- she has leukemia. I can't remember all the correct medical terms but a plan of treatment was put into works immediately. 

 Here she is July 15 with her Daddy, Travis, and her Mamaw Melinda, Travis' mother. [Melinda is my baby girl] We were still thinking she had a virus and she was swelled because of the infection. 

It is almost 5 a.m. and I have been up several hours. Charlotte, of course, was the first thing on my mind and there was no way I could go back to sleep so here I am sharing our experience. 

You see, Charlotte has an older sister, Isabella Lynn, whose birthday is today but she was born twice on August 5, 2014-once to earth and then back to heaven. I shared that time @ http://cwainscott.blogspot.com/2014/10/isabella-in-gods-hands.html.

That was a heartache beyond heartaches and now my precious Charlotte is ill. So what do I do when I can barely catch a breath at times.

I think on those times that God has been faithful to hear us and answer our prayers as with our Ayden: http://cwainscott.blogspot.com/2011/04/gods-miracle-baby-ayden.html

and

my nephew, Keith:http://cwainscott.blogspot.com/2015/03/and-yet-another-miracle.html

and

I pray and ask for the prayers of everyone who will. So would you please pray for our Charlotte for complete healing quickly so she can be through her treatments and that they don't make her ill. 

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Matt 18:20

God bless you

Carolyn Wainscott

OUR PLAN FOR LIFE-PRIORITIZE!

Out of the mouth of babes. Our family's eight year old guru, Monica, expounded on her epiphany of orderly living from a display of 'outdoor living' at Walmart that she misread as "orderly living". Her Mamaw Connie caught Monica's 'orderly stream of thought' on her cell phone. 

Monica's first example was of "out of order" living where children are blamed? leading up to the opposite example of her Uncle James who is "loving, caring, takes care of people" and other thoughts to the conclusion that "he is an orderly liver and so, she said, is her Aunt Titi, James' wife".  Monica says "This is how your life should go-you should be dating for at least a year, then get married, then have kids then just pretty much live life normally like my Uncle James and Aunt Titi. Simple? Huh?

Monica put into words the thoughts that had been roaming around in my head about that young couple-in fact, in the same words. 

Monica's Uncle James and Aunt Titi [Kyrstie to the rest of us] had two major life happenings a week or so before within days of each other. The birth of their third daughter, Everlee, and moving into their new home just two days later. 

I'm just in awe and so proud of this young couple who are both only 26 years old that I wanted to get in their own words how they got their college degrees, have their educational loans paid off [the loans were astronomical], have three children, designed and built their home. I knew how because I keep up with them but I wanted to ask face to face. Kyrstie is my niece and I've watched her grow up.  

NO!-a rich uncle didn't die and leave them his fortune!
NO!-they didn't win the lottery!
NO!-they aren't pampered brats of doting parents! [well, sometimes Kyrstie is kind of a brat]

I didn't realize my last post here on TheAlabasterBox was over a year ago and it also was about Kyrstie and their twins, Rylee and Myckinley @

http://cwainscott.blogspot.com/2016/01/it-was-angel.html

When the opportunity came to hop in the car with Kyrstie's mother to go visit in Virginia for a couple of days, I jumped at the chance to see that beautiful new baby and their new home they had just moved into a couple of weeks before.

The chance to talk with James and Kyrstie came Saturday after lunch with the three babies napping [now that's a feat in itself!] after the morning of breakfast, diaper changing, breast feeding Everlee, the twins plastering each other with joint compound they had found [that's a story for another time], baths to wash off plaster, several loads of laundry, snacks, more diaper changing, play time, breast feeding, lunch.

With the twins napping in the corner of the sectional, I got to hold baby Everlee and we  adults  gathered around them in the family room of this beautiful new home that was designed from the ground up by this wonderful young couple. I asked James and Kyrstie how in the world they have accomplished so much in such a short time. I really didn't expect them to go into so much detail but here it is in a nutshell: 
PRIORITIES AND WORKING TOGETHER

A little about Kyrstie:
Born and raised in Blanchester, Ohio.
An honor student all through school and her goal was to be a nurse.
Accepted by the nursing school of her choice in Virginia after high school graduation.
Out of necessity applied for as many grants and scholarships as she qualified for.
Worked 2 and 3 jobs during school and through summers between semesters to save money for her expenses but with all this still ended up with large educational loans. 

and

A little about James:
Born and raised in Virginia
Works in the family business
Is an extremely hard working and industrious young man
Attended business college courses

So how does a little gal from the small town of Blanchester, Ohio meet up with a little farm guy in Virginia? Kyrstie's roommate in college was Courtney, Courtney's boyfriend was Clifton who just happened to be James' life long best friend. Kyrstie told me after just a few days of meeting  she would have married him and I understand that before asking her to marry him, James came here to Ohio to ask Kyrstie's grandfather who had raised her for his permission-how's that for old fashion tradition?

Now back to guru Monica's "orderly living of dating for a year"-
James and Kyrstie dated for 3 more years, saved every dime they could, finished school so were a little more orderly than even Monica's thoughts. James already had substantial savings from working through high school with his family so that plus their additional savings was used to pay off their educational loans because their next goal was a beautiful wedding and a new home as soon as possible and the loans needed to be gone to qualify for the home. Their wedding was as nice as any I've attended and everything was made by Kyrstie and her Mamaw Jackie who is my sister along with other family members. It was  a year long production of planning and work. 

James continued to work and Kyrstie started working as soon as she graduated. After their wedding they chose to live in a mobile home on the back of the family farm instead of renting an expensive apartment. They worked for weeks on getting the mobile home ready to move into-it was far from a dream home but saving rent money meant bringing their dream home into reality much quicker-remember-PRIORITIES.

Kyrstie worked every shift she could even after becoming pregnant with the twins up until she started having problems and had to go on bed rest for a couple of months before they were born.  When the twins' crises were over Kyrstie went back to work. She was able to do this because the "working together" mode is always in operation in this home plus there is a lot of other family who help in the girls' care-James grandmother and mother. Here again, James is no slacker in the parenting department. He feeds and bathes the girls and they cling to him as much as to Kyrstie. If one is crying he sweeps them up and gets them comforted. 

Again, when Kyrstie became pregnant with Everlee, she worked up until a few days before her birth. Their home was being built all during the pregnancy and they moved in 2 days after Everlee was born. 

My photo from across the room of James, Kyrstie, Rylee, Myckinley, Everlee

Great grandmother, Jackie, Kyrstie, Everlee

Rylee and Myckinley just enjoying their new home-things had been really cramped in the mobile home

Play time

Here is  a photo from a couple of days ago-Everlee has grown so from when I saw her a few weeks ago

a day in the life of

Here are some photos of the house as we pulled up into the driveway. James dug out all the basement for the home and put in the driveway himself.

another of James talents-he turned this old sewing machine into a sink for the guest bath

and still another of James' handiwork-he chose and harvested the trees for the floors for the whole house. Then prepared them to be installed. They are a designers dream floor. 

What a blessing to have that Saturday afternoon conversation as those precious baby girls slept. Usually there are so many around you can't even hear yourself think. 

My thoughts have been several times how much better things would be if we  prioritize as James and Kyrstie-putting God first and "in order" as Monica says. 

God bless you
Carolyn Wainscott

   

  

IT WAS AN ANGEL

This morning my niece, Kyrstie, shared an article written by a young mother about her experience with carrying and having her twins-the high blood pressure, the bed rest, the wrenching morning sickness-and I'm sure it brought back Kyrstie's own harrowing pregnancy with her twins last year.

She and the twins, Myckinlee and Rylee, [I hope I have their names spelled right this time] were all in jeopardy for several months before and after their birth.  The baby girls were kept for weeks after they were born with complications, at times it seemed as though it was touch and go. 

In April, Kyrstie was hospitalized and put on bed rest around Easter. She lives in Virginia and we are in Ohio but it so happened several of us were visiting and I  wanted to go to the hospital to see her before I came home. I especially wanted to pray with her.

We had gotten a call the night before that things weren't going well. Those of us who were staying at my brother's home circled in prayer for her. The need seemed especially urgent. 

When we got to the hospital the next day she shared her experience from the night before-it gave me goose bumps:

Her angel was with her at the same time we were praying to comfort her. I am so glad I had my camera with me to have been able to record this. 

Here are Rylee and Myckinlee several months ago

and their most recent photo just a few days ago

As you can see they are doing very, very well. 

I am so blessed to be a part of a family that prays for and with each other as I've written before:

http://cwainscott.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-family-that-prays-together.html

http://cwainscott.blogspot.com/2011/04/gods-miracle-baby-ayden.html

May God bless you and all yours

Carolyn Wainscott