A guest post

Hi, my name is Britta. I was asked to guest post here to tell you all about Asher and our story. Let me introduce you to my grandson:

This is my grandson Asher. Asher was born in November of 2008. This picture was taken in September of 2009. He was a perfect bundle of health till about mid September. After several visits to the pediatrician and three trips to three different ERs he was diagnosed with a brain tumor on October 5th. That day the world stood still for us. He underwent brain surgery on October 9th and fortunately for us the wonderful neurosurgeon at Childrens hospital in Oklahoma City was able to remove the whole tumor but a few days later we found out that the tumor was malignant. Extraskeletal myxoid chondrosarcoma was the final diagnosis. Asher is one of a kind. None of the pediatric oncologists in the US have ever treated that type of tumor in a baby and especially not in the brain.
Our life changed that day. All we cared about was that Asher will be ok, that he will survive and grow up as a normal boy. My daughter spent day and night with Asher in the hospital for a month while he was in PICU and the cancer ward. Honestly i'm not sure how we got thru it. You go thru the motions, you hang on as best as you can. Since they day Asher was diagnosed we had to rely on a lot of friends, family and organizations to help us.
While Asher was in PICU my daughter used rooms in the hospital supplied by the Ronald McDonald foundation. They call them sleeping rooms, a place where you can nap for a couple of hours and also shower and do your laundry.
We got in contact with the OK Brain tumor foundation and also Alley's house, another non profit organization that helps families financially while they are dealing with a child and the treatments.
Ashers oncologist told us that his type of tumor was known not to respond to chemo so that was immediately ruled out. She suggested radiation, a special type of radiation called Proton beam therapy. Only problem: There are only 6 locations in the US, one was in Oklahoma city but they had just opened and had no pediatric anesthesiologist yet. Asher was referred to MPRI in Indiana.
We had to find housing for my daughter and my grandson for 6-7 weeks in Indiana. Again, another non profit organization was there to help. Jills house, built just for the patients of the proton center, but they still charged $30 per night. The OK Brain tumor foundation payed $1000 toward his housing. We had to pay the rest, another $560. Alley's house payed for my daughters rent and utility bills for her apartment while they were out of state.
We are not rich, we are an average middle class working family, we never thought we had to ask anyone to help us, that all changed the day Asher was diagnosed. These non profit organizations have been life savers for us, even though we had to pay a LOT of money out of pocket to get Asher back and forth to treatments, out of state housing, helping my daughter because of her loss of income, if we wouldn't have had the help that we got, it would have been almost impossible for us to get thru this.
Nobody should ever have to sit in a hospital worrying if their child will make it out of there AND have to worry about not being able to pay their bills. Cancer comes without notice, it hit us like a ton of bricks, stopped us in our tracks and brought us down to our knees. We will fight this disease with or without help, but all the help we have received so far sure has made this journey for us a lot easier and gave us some time to completely focus on his care. I used to be too proud to ask for help, you loose your pride when cancer invades your life.
To follow Ashers story: http://aprayerforasher.blogspot.com/
Ashers caringbridge site: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/asherrayreynolds
Thank you for reading about Asher
Britta-Asher's grandma