Thank you for supporting me and the more than 300,000 kids worldwide who will be diagnosed with cancer this year. By sharing the gifts of your time, talent and money with the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, you're supporting research to give all kids with cancer a better chance for a cure. Cynne was diagnosed with anaplastic large cell lymphoma on September 13, 2023. Prior to this life changing experience Cynne was just a typical child enjoying summer. while preparing for back to School Cynne was just feeling sick, it seemed like flu symptoms. We almost thought she had covid, boy! Were we wrong. Cynne was weak and about the third day she started to develop a swollen neck. In late August Cynne was brought to Pediatric Urgent care where they prescribed her with a very broad antibiotic not really sure of what to diagnose her with. September 2nd 2023 our life changed. That morning we woke up early and decided hey we need to go to the ER. GBMC seemed like a really good place to start, seeing as though they had a pediatric emergency room. That day Cynnes illness stumped the providers at GBMC so they decided to transport her via ambulance to Johns Hopkins Pediatric ER. Upon arriving we really started to realized quickly we werent going home. After two weeks in the Pediatric ICU we finally got the diagnosis and it scared us terribly. We were definetly grief stricken but after the many tests and complications we were glad to know what the problem was and to start the solution; treatment (chemo). Cynne really fought to live and fought bravely through the many challenges she faced in PICU: 3 chest tubes, spinal taps, biopsies, fluid retention, just not regulating temperature (it was either fever or hypothermic), not eating (leading to weight loss), at one point even needing help to breathe with a high flow device. Cynne struggled mostly with breathing because the lymphoma was causing inflamation everywhere but mostly her lungs and spleen. Her little heart was doing so much work at that time. After picu we immediatly moved to the pediatric oncology inpatient floor to start treatment not wasting anymore time, we had wasted so much time trying to figure out if it was infectious disease or auto immune. Once we got to Oncology we spent another two weeks. Cynne lived here at Hopkins for about a month and was so happy to go home. We met so many providers and caregivers, We have never met so many doctors and had so many meetings in our lives. Cynne is on her journey to recovery at Johns Hopkins Childrens Hospital. Cynne has successfully completed a few cycles of  chemo and we are hopeful to continue to see real improvement and healing. The power of God saw her through her early battle, support from family, friends and her medical team has added to that healing. We are grateful for all support and love. Its all about Children and parents understanding that nothing you did, said or thought caused your child to get cancer. Thats its okay to be angry, happy, scared, anxious but never to feel guilty. Somethings are out of our control and in the lords hands and for this we will not worry, we will trust him and pray that he preserves our girl! I want to say a special thank you to our team of excellent docs, nurses, care givers, social workers and child life specialists. Without these amazing people we would be in a different place right now. We love you!