God is Bigger than 20%

We desperately need people to go before the Throne on Maddie's behalf. I'm pleading...

Here is an updated post from my brother-in-law off of their care page for my niece, Madison. PLEASE be pleading with us to a God who is bigger than 20% right now and if you have access to any other prayer chains of any kind, please pass this along. We want God to see that we are all willing to fall at His Throne on behalf of Maddie. We need a miracle and God has plenty of those to give. Please continue to follow their journey, get specific prayer requests, updates, and photos of Maddie on their care page. You will need to set up an account, but it is free and very simple to set up.

Here is the link: http://www.carepages.com/carepages/MadisonPflug

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Full Diagnosis and Treatment Plan

Posted 13 hours ago

Wow, this is going to be hard to type, but here we go:

Maddie has T-Cell Lymphoma, the same kind of cancer that she had before. The difference this time is that they found it throughout the bone marrow. That means the cancer is more advanced and will require a successful bone marrow transplant in order for her to have even a small chance of being cured.

Here are the stats: less than 20% of transplant patients who go into remission and then regress (like Maddie, today) are ever cured of the disease and go on to live a semi-normal life. The other 80% are equally distributed among those who fight the disease either for a short time, medium time or repeatedly until they all lose the battle.

The most important step today is her breathing. It is restricted by her tumors and could pose an early problem for treatment. Steroids (Prednisone)are the first line of attack and she has been taking them all day today (1/24). We will know how effective this is within a day or two. If they are not effective in reducing the tumors and helping her breathe, then they will take much more aggressive chemotherapy measures.

If her overall treatment leads to significant success against the cancer, then they will begin the process of finding a bone marrow transplant match after one month, and consider doing the procedure, if a good enough match is found, after 3 months.

The scary part is that the most likely match for Maddie is a sibling. They will take the next few weeks determining whether Sydney is large enough and old enough to be considered a match. If she is not a match, then we go into the lottery to find a match from a stranger(s). Again, IF the steroid/chemotherapy goes well enough AND a good donor match is found, AND the transplant procedure is successful - THEN she gets that 20% chance of a full recovery.

We were given entirely better "odds" the first time around when she went through this at age 2. But we all know that numbers do not tell the whole story. The important thing to take from my ramblings is that we have a huge fight ahead of us: a fight that we will engage by faith, through prayer and dependence on Christ. Please join us in praying for strength, courage and hope.

Maddie knows the summary of things - which is that cancer is back and she will need to be brave in many ways for many days. It was one of the hardest moments of my life to sit there and explain the truth to her today. All three of us cried and talked about how we are scared, sad, mad...and ready to fight! Amy and I are still incredibly stunned. Only the God of the universe will get us through this, because we aren't strong enough to do it without Him.

In closing, the staff here have been great. Amy and I are physically well and we are overwhelmed with the support and prayers from all of you. Maddie is being showered with attention, presents and praise (which she so graciously accepts with a big smile). We are still in the ICU, but some visitors are allowed and welcome between 11AM - 9PM above the age of 16. The doctors anticipate this particular hospital stay lasting at least a couple of weeks.

I promise that I will not be so long-winded in future updates...probably.

Thanks again to all of you. We love you, dearly!

Dan

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Thank you for your support and prayers. Personally, Micah & I also want to ask for others to please be praying for my sister, Amy & her husband, Dan and their other daughter, Sydney (age 2). We are praying for the Truth of God to be bolstered up in them and that the Truth will squelch any lies Satan is trying to burden them with.

Dan and Amy also are currently both unemployed. Dan had recently made a decision to make a job change from a pastorship role in Michigan and had been working at a factory while they waited for his next role in ministry, but was laid off just before Christmas, while Amy is a stay-at-home mom. Maddie is covered by Medicare so her health expenses will be taken care of, however, the gas money, life expenses, and food costs could become an added burden they don't need at this time with no income. If you feel led, I am sure they would appreciate and be blessed by any monetary gifts we could send their way.

If you want to send them a card, gift, or monetary gift of support (checks made out to Dan & Amy Pflug), please mail them to:

Madison Pflug

c/o Helen DeVos Children's Hospital

100 Michigan Street NE

Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503

Thank you,

Angie & Micah Thieszen