Requesting prayers...

Hi everyone this is Linda, Lisa's friend, filling in for tonight. Brayden was admitted into the hospital for a blood transfusion today and as you know from the last one, everyone is a bit nervous. We all are praying for Brayden's health tonight and praying for Lisa and Bryan for strength and endurance through this difficult time.

Lisa sent me this email to share with you...

I had hoped to tell everyone last week how we were disappointed in Brayden's counts after his local Onoclogy clinic visit. The week went by so fast. After a week of no chemo & steroids, a recent blood transfusion, his blood results hit me like a kick in the stomach. Thankfully, at least they were high enough to go back on chemo. We seized the opportunity & went straight to the movies to see Toy Story 3. He'd been wanting to go but hadn't been able due to his counts. It was such a welcome distraction & fun time for him. He loved getting to go. The rest of the week I tried to be relaxed but was worried about what a week WITH chemo starting with lower counts would do.

I was all set to write about how the 4th of July is Hershey's least-favorite holiday. She was so scared all weekend with all the loud popping going on. With fireworks last week & weekend going until nearly midnight, I had a brilliant idea. I would plan with the older neighbors to start lighting black cats at 7am to wake up the younger ones who were up late! Suddenly I realized I'm getting older, huh?
Even though we were secretly so nervous about his counts, we went ahead with our family visit on Sunday afternoon. We loved that Brayden got to light some fireworks and enjoy them. The night before we loved parking at the top of the hill & smelling the night breeze & watching all the beautiful fireworks. Oh if only those moments weren't so fleeting.

Monday was such a nice, lazy day. I've been keeping things wiped down again & back to Isolation cleaning without him hopefully noticing. We got to visit with our sweet friends for a bit and it was so nice.

Today has been another jolt. The Oncology clinic weekly visit today brought more disappointing results. I haven't seen all zeroes on Brayden's bloodwork in over 6 months. He's severely Neutropenic today, which means strict isolation. This means no chemo today or nightly chemo. Not what we wanted to hear. The other bad news was his hemoglobin blood levels were critically low. His platelets were in half since last week. So we waited at clinic for orders to be written, ran home to grab a bag & some dinner for us, then on to the hospital. We prayed on the way and after me praying for all the things for Brayden, he stopped my heart by praying for all the babies at the hospital to be healthy & get to go home. He's so unselfish & it makes me so proud of him. We were singing along to Michael W. Smith's "I Will be Here for You" and trying to ignore how neither of us wanted to go. After taking the exit for the hospital, Brayden burst out, "A RAINBOW!". It was so beautiful and touched both of us in such a special way.

Getting admitted was tricky with a Neutropenic child. There's no worst place than the ER. Everyone here was great. Brayden's so happy to have a guy for a nurse who hooked him up with a DVD player. He's settled in (after I re-cleaned the room) watching Little House on the Prairie and playing cards. We're waiting on the blood to get here & making the most of our time.

I ask again for your prayers for Brayden during this uncertain time. Thank you for loving him with us and partnering with us in prayer for him. It's so hard not to be scared. We're praying for his body's protection while his counts are lower...that he won't develop any secondary infections that can come even from his own skin. We're praying for good blood that will help his body continue fighting...that the transfusion will go smoothly without any effect to his heart or organs. That his body will accept it and not develop transfusion reaction. We're praying that the additional medications he will have this time will prevent any fevers from developing like last time. We're praying that his liver be strong & the enzyme levels to decrease...that it would be able to continue filtering out the chemo & not be damaged. We pray his Neuropathy doesn't worsen, as he's had increased pain lately. We're praying that the leukemia cells would NOT return after another week without chemo. We pray his bone marrow strengthen to again create new healthy cells in the coming days and weeks so he can continue his 2-years of treatment left without Neutropenia. We thank Him for Brayden's healing. We pray this blood would help strengthen Brayden's system to continue fighting. We pray for his spirit to be encouraged and we pray he continue to remain emotionally strong.

We'll be in strict isolation again for a week. We're hoping and praying next Monday brings wonderful results for him. We'll try to post an update tomorrow after he gets home tomorrow without incident from the blood transfusion.

Thank you all for being loyal prayer warriors for Lisa, Bryan and Brayden. Their ability to walk this journey with courage, strength and a grateful heart has touched me. On behalf of the Jones family, thank you for your continued prayers.