a note from alyssa's mom

this is posted at carepages.com and when you sign in it's under "alyssasjourney" but i thought i would post it cause so many of the prayers were from you guys too. all i have to say is that this little girl and her family is going through A LOT.

1 March 09, 2008 at 04:39 PM MDT
Dear Family and Friends, We wanted to begin this web page to let you all know how Alyssa is doing and to keep in touch with you better. Alyssa was diagnosed with cancer called neuroblastoma. She has a solid mass tumor in the back part of her abdominal cavity that goes from her pelvis up to the middle of her chest. This cancer grows from the adrenal gland on top of her right kidney and follows the sympathetic nerves up her spinal column. We have gone through the staging process, which tells the tumor's make-up and what its cells are behaving like. It also tells how far advanced it is and where all it has spread in Alyssa's little body. The results have told us that she is in Stage IV and is High-Risk. It also is into her bone marrow as well as a little bit of bone disease. This being the case, we have to fight it pretty aggressively. But three days are behind us. We hope to finish two more days of the chemo and depending on how she's doing at that point, we'll get to bring her home and take care of her while her blood builds back up. Neuroblastoma, being from the adrenal gland, has caused Alyssa to have extremely high blood pressure, as well as no appetite. Her blood pressures have been as high as 150's over 119 and one time it was 163 over 119. Not good pressure at all, but we have monitored it well and she has had to have as much as three blood pressure medications. However we cheered today, because they just took her pressure and it was 118 over 69! We were so excited. She also had to have a blood transfusion yesterday, March 8. That may have contributed to the lowered blood pressure. We are so amazed and humbled and grateful to all of you for your prayers, phone calls, gifts, cards encouraging words and financial generosity. We thank you for putting Alyssa's name on the prayer rolls in as many as five different temples. We also are grateful for that which has been done to help our other kids through this hard time in their lives. We have certainly felt the strength of so much faith and prayer exercised in our behalf. We are so blessed to have you all encircling us during this stunning (for lack of words to describe it!) thing that has come into our lives. We express gratitude and testimony for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the complete anchor it is for us through this. We know Heavenly Father loves Alyssa and is aware of what we are going through. We know that our Savior knows what we are feeling. We trust Alyssa to be in Their hands and exert all of our faith and constant prayers for Their hand in her treatment and healing. Please accept our heartfelt thanks for all you do, for the goodness in your own lives and your care and concern for us. Hopefully this will help keep in touch and that it will be helpful to you to know how Alyssa's doing. We love you all, Love, the Chappells