Anna's Angel Fund Update: December 2004

Anna's Angel Fund Update: December 2004

It's hard to believe we're celebrating Christmas as a family after going through the process earlier this year of accepting such a poor prognosis for Anna. How special the holidays are for us this year! We hope our experience will give each of you a reason during the holidays to pause and really appreciate the people in your lives who are precious to you - and to tell them. As you read the stories below of the children and families whose lives have been blessed by your gifts, we think they will also give you an amazing dose of gratitude for the health and happiness in your families.

Since our last update in August, Anna's MRIs continue to confuse and amaze the doctors. Neuro-oncologists from all over the country reviewed her scans and confirmed with certainty their agreement that her cancer had returned. Yet, a few weeks later, the tumors began to shrink and after two more MRIs over a period of 5 months (without any further treatment!), they continue to shrink significantly! We celebrate every day as never before and we are so thankful that God has chosen to let us keep her for now.

And since He has, we have work to do! Thanks to many of you, we are able to do more than we ever dreamed. Here are the highlights of what Anna has chosen to do with your donations since our last update. We hope they warm your heart as they do ours…

$600 Old Navy, Gap, Galyans, Checkered Flag Lightning (NASCAR Store)
This was for a family consisting of a single mom and three boys (ages 7, 10 and 12.) The two younger boys are her own and the oldest is a nephew that she is raising. One of her own sons has cancer. According to their social worker "mom is holding things together under very difficult and stressful circumstances." They are at the hospital a lot. They desperately needed assistance with school clothes. The oldest boy didn't even have a winter coat. We did a little "digging" to find out what they liked and this was a particularly fun shopping trip! Our first stop was to Old Navy and Gap and we stocked up on jeans and khakis for all three boys. We also got sweats for the younger two. The 7 year old loved race cars, basketball and Scooby-Doo. We got plenty of clothing for him with all three of those themes and we went to the Nascar store and got him autographed posters of Jeff Gordon and somebody else they told us was really cool(?!). The 10 year old loves basketball and the Falcons. We went Galyans and got him an authentic Michael Vick jersey, then bought him a couple of basketball jerseys. The 12 year old just wanted to look nice. He wanted to be "in style". For him, we bought everything at Gap and had the manager and a sales guy help us pick out what they thought a 12 year old boy would think was cool. We also got him a really great, warm coat there. Finally, we went back to Galyans and got all three of them new tennis shoes. This trip was a blast!

$272 Alltel
Anna chose to pay a telephone bill for this family. What a story they have. Their children are twin three year olds. One was born with Cystic Fibrosis. I believe it was about a year ago that the other twin was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Now, the twin with Cystic Fibrosis has also been diagnosed with exactly the same type of brain tumor. It's hard to even imagine what a day in their lives must be like. The rest of their family doesn't live locally and didn't realize that when they call the parents' cell phone to check on the children, the parents are paying for those minutes. The bill got out of hand for them. Their social worker helped them find a better service and plan, but Anna wanted to get them out of the jam they were in for this month.

$300 Carter Martin Experimental Research Fund
On September 12th, Anna lost a friend named Carter. Losing Carter was very hard for her - and for Larry and me, too. We grew to love their family very much. With the donations Egleston received in his memory, his family started an experimental research fund in his name. The funds were placed in an endowment and Anna wanted to contribute to that. She donated $300 in memory of Carter from her Angel Fund to help with the research. She said she hoped that maybe there would be kids who wouldn't have to go through the same treatments she's been though because of Carters' fund. She's hoping they'll find better ways. We all are. Thank you, Leigh Ann, Scott, Candler, and Carter.

$550 Target
For a 5 year old little boy and his grandmother, who is raising him. This little boy had been pretty much living at Egleston, with his grandmother at his side. They obviously had very little - the little boy wore shorts around the hospital (and it is always cold in there, especially when you are sick). His grandmother wore the same, stained sweater every day and also needed warmer clothes. The staff at the hospital said she would never ask for anything. But since they obviously had needs, and we have angels like you providing donations, we made sure they would stay warm in the hospital. We also found out that the little boy loved Spiderman and we had a blast with that!! We got him all kinds of Spiderman sweats, pajamas, tennis shoes, toys, and even a really cool Spiderman comforter to cheer up his hospital bed! We also got him lots of other warm jeans, shirts and sweats, too. But we didn't leave out Grandma. We got her some warm, comfortable clothes and a nice, new (stain-free) cardigan to wear around the hospital.

$350 Cash
Anna heard through a social worker at Egleston about a ten year old boy who had a vascular tumor in his throat that was affecting his airway. He had not responded to standard treatment and a world renowned expert surgeon in New York City had agreed to perform surgery on him. Egleston arranged for free airfare, and the surgeon and the hospital in New York graciously provided his services for free! But even with all that, his family was very stressed about how they would pay for their food and taxi fares. Both can be very expensive in New York! So, Anna sent them $350 to relieve a little of the stress on them for those things.

$375 Old Navy, Toys R Us
This was for a teenage boy who has had more in his life to bear than any of us can imagine. This boy has hemophilia and diabetes. He has recently been diagnosed with Leukemia as well. Unimaginable. But that isn't all. He is a foster child and his biological mother has passed away. When he was asked what he'd like for Christmas, he only named three things, one of which was a pair of tennis shoes. Anna said, "We can't just get him three things. We need to give him CHRISTMAS!" So we did our best to do just that. We bought him computer software, very cool tennis shoes and tons of warm clothes (which we heard he could really use, because it is very cold where he lives!)

$27 Gift Shop
When Anna was struggling with the side effects of chemo and radiation, one of the Child Life workers, Sara, taught Anna many different coping skills to help her control her body's reaction to the treatments. She used things like visualization, imagery, and relaxation to help Anna cope. Anna found a wonderful toy that was perfect for helping the kids at the hospital with practicing these kinds of skills and she bought it for Sara.

$400 Star Light Farm
Anna decided she wanted to make a donation to Star Light Farm. This is the farm where Anna takes therapeutic horseback riding lessons. Star Light is an amazing place, owned and run by wonderful people. They provide therapeutic riding lessons to children who need them, many times regardless of their ability to pay. Anna wanted to donate $400 to the farm.

$375 Cash
This went to a mother whose family had lost their child's battle with cancer. It was to give them a little "breathing room" for the month.

$350 Babies R Us
For a family with three boys, one a newborn baby. One of the boys was recently diagnosed with a very rare type of Leukemia and dad had lost his job. They spoke no English (and could not read English) so the hospital was working very hard to educate them on their son's illness and on his care. Their social worker said that since dad had lost his job they really had nothing for this baby and she wanted to know if Anna could help them. You can imagine Anna's response! Shop for a newborn baby??!! How much fun is that?!! So she bought two sizes of diapers, blankets, toys, and lots of clothes. She even picked out a precious pumpkin seat. This shopping trip was especially fun for Anna!

$300 J.C. Penney, Toys R Us
For a four year old little boy whose diagnosis/prognosis we do not know. We heard from his Child Life worker at the hospital that he could really use our help. All we knew about him were his clothing sizes and that he loved Barney! (We decided that he may be the only child who is really still "into" Barney when we tried to find clothing with Barney on it!) We did finally come up with a few things though and knowing that he needed clothes, we bought him plenty. We just tried to top it off with as many Barney toys as we could find!

$400 Target Gift Card
For a little boy with a very aggressive brain tumor. His family gets food stamps, housing assistance and Medicaid provides transportation to and from the hospital for his treatments. Their two greatest needs were for a double stroller and clothes for the older little boy who had the brain tumor. The Executive Director of the Brain Tumor Fdn. told us that he really did not have any clothes that fit him. They also needed money for his medicines. Logistically it was impossible for us to deliver a stroller, clothing, and medicines to them, so this time we sent a Target gift card to them through the Brain Tumor Foundation to let them purchase what they needed.

$306 Toys R Us, $125 Honeybaked Store, $100 Visa Gift Card
To make sure Santa Claus finds his way to a family with a four year old boy and a six year old girl. BOTH children have been diagnosed with brain tumors. The little boy is now almost blind, and has many other problems as well, and both children suffer often with seizures that require hospitalization. Anna couldn't wait to shop for the children but offered to let the parents give the gifts as "Santa Claus" if they needed to. They said they really did, so we decided to let Anna choose one gift to give each child herself as a Christmas gift and the rest we secretly switched from our car trunk to theirs so Santa could bring it. Knowing that Christmas isn't just for the children, Anna also provided the parents with a Visa gift card so they could buy themselves something. We also delivered a big, early Christmas dinner from the Honeybaked store.

$200 Publix Gift Card
This was given to a family whose teenage daughter has cancer. Her cancer has recurred recently and hospice has been assisting their family.

$125 Honeybaked Store
Anna had set aside this money for a sweet little boy named William. We had met William on several occasions at social events. Anna heard that his tumor had come back and she was hoping to do something for him. He was confined to his bed for quite a while because of his pain, but through the Brain Tumor Fdn. For Children, he was offered a free limo ride for himself and his family wherever he wanted to go just as soon as he was up to it. (This was huge to William because he comes from a family with very little.) Anna was hoping that when he took that limo ride with his family she could help them do more than just go for a ride - maybe go have dinner or play games somewhere. Whatever William could think of that would be fun for him. But the doctors could not seem to get his pain under control well enough for him to enjoy getting out of the house. And we lost William. Since that money was already set aside, she decided to save the money until the holidays and send his family a really nice dinner from Honeybaked. They should be getting it any day now.

It's very hard to stop writing this update because so many exciting things are happening with Anna's Angel Fund right now. I'm torn between holding on to it to tell you more and getting this out to you before Christmas. We have children we are actually shopping for tomorrow whose stories I want so badly to include, but I will save them for the next time. There are always more. But there are always angels like you to rescue them, too.

Again this time, I haven't done as well as I'd planned in keeping up with everything Anna has done. The pace of our lives has changed so drastically. But hopefully this will give you enough information to see how precious your donations have been to these families.

As you know, with very few exceptions, Anna's gifts from her Angel Fund are all made anonymously. Now that we are blessed not to be living at the hospital so often, we don't get to see many of their faces either. But we do hear their stories and sometimes hear about their reactions to your gifts, and many times their gratitude would bring you to tears.

Whether you have made a financial contribution to Anna's Angel Fund or not - to everyone who receives our letter, you have touched our lives in such special ways and we are changed forever because of you. God consistently brings the children into our lives who need angels like you and because you continue to serve as those angels, we are committed to making our tiny part of this world forever changed.

Thank you so much for the gifts of your support, your love, your prayers, your friendship, and your donations. May God bless each of you and your families in a very special way during the holidays and in the new year!

Love,

Lisa, Larry and Anna

Back to Updates Page


		*Anna's Angel Fund Update: December 2004* It's hard to believe we're celebrating Christmas as a family after going through the process earlier this year of accepting such a poor prognosis for Anna. How special the holidays are for us this year! We hope our experience will give each of you a reason during the holidays to pause and really appreciate the people in your lives who are precious to you - and to tell them. As you read the stories below of the children and families whose lives have been blessed by your gifts, we think they will also give you an amazing dose of gratitude for the health and happiness in your families. Since our last update in August, Anna's MRIs continue to confuse and amaze the doctors. Neuro-oncologists from all over the country reviewed her scans and confirmed with certainty their agreement that her cancer had returned. Yet, a few weeks later, the tumors began to shrink and after two more MRIs over a period of 5 months (without any further treatment!), they continue to shrink significantly! We celebrate every day as never before and we are so thankful that God has chosen to let us keep her for now. And since He has, we have work to do! Thanks to many of you, we are able to do more than we ever dreamed. Here are the highlights of what Anna has chosen to do with your donations since our last update. We hope they warm your heart as they do ours… $600 Old Navy, Gap, Galyans, Checkered Flag Lightning (NASCAR Store) This was for a family consisting of a single mom and three boys (ages 7, 10 and 12.) The two younger boys are her own and the oldest is a nephew that she is raising. One of her own sons has cancer. According to their social worker "mom is holding things together under very difficult and stressful circumstances." They are at the hospital a lot. They desperately needed assistance with school clothes. The oldest boy didn't even have a winter coat. We did a little "digging" to find out what they liked and this was a particularly fun shopping trip! Our first stop was to Old Navy and Gap and we stocked up on jeans and khakis for all three boys. We also got sweats for the younger two. The 7 year old loved race cars, basketball and Scooby-Doo. We got plenty of clothing for him with all three of those themes and we went to the Nascar store and got him autographed posters of Jeff Gordon and somebody else they told us was really cool(?!). The 10 year old loves basketball and the Falcons. We went Galyans and got him an authentic Michael Vick jersey, then bought him a couple of basketball jerseys. The 12 year old just wanted to look nice. He wanted to be "in style". For him, we bought everything at Gap and had the manager and a sales guy help us pick out what they thought a 12 year old boy would think was cool. We also got him a really great, warm coat there. Finally, we went back to Galyans and got all three of them new tennis shoes. This trip was a blast! $272 Alltel Anna chose to pay a telephone bill for this family. What a story they have. Their children are twin three year olds. One was born with Cystic Fibrosis. I believe it was about a year ago that the other twin was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Now, the twin with Cystic Fibrosis has also been diagnosed with exactly the same type of brain tumor. It's hard to even imagine what a day in their lives must be like. The rest of their family doesn't live locally and didn't realize that when they call the parents' cell phone to check on the children, the parents are paying for those minutes. The bill got out of hand for them. Their social worker helped them find a better service and plan, but Anna wanted to get them out of the jam they were in for this month. $300 Carter Martin Experimental Research Fund On September 12th, Anna lost a friend named Carter. Losing Carter was very hard for her - and for Larry and me, too. We grew to love their family very much. With the donations Egleston received in his memory, his family started an experimental research fund in his name. The funds were placed in an endowment and Anna wanted to contribute to that. She donated $300 in memory of Carter from her Angel Fund to help with the research. She said she hoped that maybe there would be kids who wouldn't have to go through the same treatments she's been though because of Carters' fund. She's hoping they'll find better ways. We all are. Thank you, Leigh Ann, Scott, Candler, and Carter. $550 Target For a 5 year old little boy and his grandmother, who is raising him. This little boy had been pretty much living at Egleston, with his grandmother at his side. They obviously had very little - the little boy wore shorts around the hospital (and it is always cold in there, especially when you are sick). His grandmother wore the same, stained sweater every day and also needed warmer clothes. The staff at the hospital said she would never ask for anything. But since they obviously had needs, and we have angels like you providing donations, we made sure they would stay warm in the hospital. We also found out that the little boy loved Spiderman and we had a blast with that!! We got him all kinds of Spiderman sweats, pajamas, tennis shoes, toys, and even a really cool Spiderman comforter to cheer up his hospital bed! We also got him lots of other warm jeans, shirts and sweats, too. But we didn't leave out Grandma. We got her some warm, comfortable clothes and a nice, new (stain-free) cardigan to wear around the hospital. $350 Cash Anna heard through a social worker at Egleston about a ten year old boy who had a vascular tumor in his throat that was affecting his airway. He had not responded to standard treatment and a world renowned expert surgeon in New York City had agreed to perform surgery on him. Egleston arranged for free airfare, and the surgeon and the hospital in New York graciously provided his services for free! But even with all that, his family was very stressed about how they would pay for their food and taxi fares. Both can be very expensive in New York! So, Anna sent them $350 to relieve a little of the stress on them for those things. $375 Old Navy, Toys R Us This was for a teenage boy who has had more in his life to bear than any of us can imagine. This boy has hemophilia and diabetes. He has recently been diagnosed with Leukemia as well. Unimaginable. But that isn't all. He is a foster child and his biological mother has passed away. When he was asked what he'd like for Christmas, he only named three things, one of which was a pair of tennis shoes. Anna said, "We can't just get him three things. We need to give him CHRISTMAS!" So we did our best to do just that. We bought him computer software, very cool tennis shoes and tons of warm clothes (which we heard he could really use, because it is very cold where he lives!) $27 Gift Shop When Anna was struggling with the side effects of chemo and radiation, one of the Child Life workers, Sara, taught Anna many different coping skills to help her control her body's reaction to the treatments. She used things like visualization, imagery, and relaxation to help Anna cope. Anna found a wonderful toy that was perfect for helping the kids at the hospital with practicing these kinds of skills and she bought it for Sara. $400 Star Light Farm Anna decided she wanted to make a donation to Star Light Farm. This is the farm where Anna takes therapeutic horseback riding lessons. Star Light is an amazing place, owned and run by wonderful people. They provide therapeutic riding lessons to children who need them, many times regardless of their ability to pay. Anna wanted to donate $400 to the farm. $375 Cash This went to a mother whose family had lost their child's battle with cancer. It was to give them a little "breathing room" for the month. $350 Babies R Us For a family with three boys, one a newborn baby. One of the boys was recently diagnosed with a very rare type of Leukemia and dad had lost his job. They spoke no English (and could not read English) so the hospital was working very hard to educate them on their son's illness and on his care. Their social worker said that since dad had lost his job they really had nothing for this baby and she wanted to know if Anna could help them. You can imagine Anna's response! Shop for a newborn baby??!! How much fun is that?!! So she bought two sizes of diapers, blankets, toys, and lots of clothes. She even picked out a precious pumpkin seat. This shopping trip was especially fun for Anna! $300 J.C. Penney, Toys R Us For a four year old little boy whose diagnosis/prognosis we do not know. We heard from his Child Life worker at the hospital that he could really use our help. All we knew about him were his clothing sizes and that he loved Barney! (We decided that he may be the only child who is really still "into" Barney when we tried to find clothing with Barney on it!) We did finally come up with a few things though and knowing that he needed clothes, we bought him plenty. We just tried to top it off with as many Barney toys as we could find! $400 Target Gift Card For a little boy with a very aggressive brain tumor. His family gets food stamps, housing assistance and Medicaid provides transportation to and from the hospital for his treatments. Their two greatest needs were for a double stroller and clothes for the older little boy who had the brain tumor. The Executive Director of the Brain Tumor Fdn. told us that he really did not have any clothes that fit him. They also needed money for his medicines. Logistically it was impossible for us to deliver a stroller, clothing, and medicines to them, so this time we sent a Target gift card to them through the Brain Tumor Foundation to let them purchase what they needed. $306 Toys R Us, $125 Honeybaked Store, $100 Visa Gift Card To make sure Santa Claus finds his way to a family with a four year old boy and a six year old girl. BOTH children have been diagnosed with brain tumors. The little boy is now almost blind, and has many other problems as well, and both children suffer often with seizures that require hospitalization. Anna couldn't wait to shop for the children but offered to let the parents give the gifts as "Santa Claus" if they needed to. They said they really did, so we decided to let Anna choose one gift to give each child herself as a Christmas gift and the rest we secretly switched from our car trunk to theirs so Santa could bring it. Knowing that Christmas isn't just for the children, Anna also provided the parents with a Visa gift card so they could buy themselves something. We also delivered a big, early Christmas dinner from the Honeybaked store. $200 Publix Gift Card This was given to a family whose teenage daughter has cancer. Her cancer has recurred recently and hospice has been assisting their family. $125 Honeybaked Store Anna had set aside this money for a sweet little boy named William. We had met William on several occasions at social events. Anna heard that his tumor had come back and she was hoping to do something for him. He was confined to his bed for quite a while because of his pain, but through the Brain Tumor Fdn. For Children, he was offered a free limo ride for himself and his family wherever he wanted to go just as soon as he was up to it. (This was huge to William because he comes from a family with very little.) Anna was hoping that when he took that limo ride with his family she could help them do more than just go for a ride - maybe go have dinner or play games somewhere. Whatever William could think of that would be fun for him. But the doctors could not seem to get his pain under control well enough for him to enjoy getting out of the house. And we lost William. Since that money was already set aside, she decided to save the money until the holidays and send his family a really nice dinner from Honeybaked. They should be getting it any day now. It's very hard to stop writing this update because so many exciting things are happening with Anna's Angel Fund right now. I'm torn between holding on to it to tell you more and getting this out to you before Christmas. We have children we are actually shopping for tomorrow whose stories I want so badly to include, but I will save them for the next time. There are always more. But there are always angels like you to rescue them, too. Again this time, I haven't done as well as I'd planned in keeping up with everything Anna has done. The pace of our lives has changed so drastically. But hopefully this will give you enough information to see how precious your donations have been to these families. As you know, with very few exceptions, Anna's gifts from her Angel Fund are all made anonymously. Now that we are blessed not to be living at the hospital so often, we don't get to see many of their faces either. But we do hear their stories and sometimes hear about their reactions to your gifts, and many times their gratitude would bring you to tears. Whether you have made a financial contribution to Anna's Angel Fund or not - to everyone who receives our letter, you have touched our lives in such special ways and we are changed forever because of you. God consistently brings the children into our lives who need angels like you and because you continue to serve as those angels, we are committed to making our tiny part of this world forever changed. Thank you so much for the gifts of your support, your love, your prayers, your friendship, and your donations. May God bless each of you and your families in a very special way during the holidays and in the new year! Love, Lisa, Larry and Anna Back to Updates Page


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