THEN:
At only 25 months of age, Zyan is a vibrant, resilient, loving, and dynamic
child. She was diagnosed with B-cell ALL at only 18 months of age.
Since that day, she has been our unfaltering foundation throughout
this physically and emotionally intensive time in our lives. Without a single
doubt in our minds, we have to admit that Zyan has been stronger than
all of her immediate family, collectively, in the graceful way that she has
managed her cancer. We are infinitely proud of our little Zy-Zy.
Zyan enjoys swinging at the park, taking walks in her stroller, playing
with her two older sisters, watching the Shrek Trilogy, and giving out
hugs and kisses to her friends and family. She is especially enjoying
her time at home now that she is in Maintenance therapy and only
requires office visits twice a month.
NOW
Zyan turned nine on December 20th. She had a perfect little birthday celebration at her favorite pizza parlor with the majority of her closet girlfriends and cousins in our area. The girls laughed, played, joked and smiled as they devoured multiple slices of pizza, experimented with artichoke dip and bruschetta, and sipped on bottomless cups of soda. Every time I caught Zyan's eye, she'd wink it at me, her way of thanking me for the evening. It was the perfect little birthday celebration. She had everything and everyone she wanted.
Almost.
Later that evening, when Zyan was getting ready for bed she thanked me for her birthday celebration. She loved everything about it BUT, she would have loved it just a little more if she didn't have this Cancer (proper noun status) inn her body, again.
On September 12th, 2015, Zyan was diagnosed with her third occurance of ALL. Just four years prior she was diagnosed for the second time. Consequently, she received a Bone Marrow Transplant (infinite thanks to big sister Jazmyn) at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. Due to the apparent success of the transplant and positive follow up exams, we thought that Cancer was no longer active.
But...
Cancer, in all of its devilish ways, is back. This time presenting itself as a lymphomic-like mass in a large section of
Zyan's left kidney, spilling into her abdominal cavity. Since this devastating (yet not defeating!) discovery Zyan has received induction strength chemotherapy treatment and CAR-T Immunotherapy at the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia.
( http://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/cancer-immunotherapy-program/about )
To date (it is 4:34 CST, March 14, 2016) Zyan has responded well to the combination of treatments that she has received for Cancer's 3rd uninvited visit. The mass in her abdomen is gone and the mass living in her kidney has decreased in size by nearly 75%. We are praying that the immunotherapy - her body's own t-cells- fights the last 25% of the cells to their infinite death because in Zyan's very simple yet impactful words, "I just don't have space or time in my life for this".
We pray that this is our last battle to a victorious battle to this Eight-Year-War.
