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6/28/09 | The boys and I had a great weekend swimming, playing video games and horseback riding. I feel like the most blessed dad in the world for have four great kids and one super grandson. I recently had a change in my job function. I've worked at the U.S. Department of Justice for the past sixteen years and for about the last ten or so years I've been working in the area of Automated Litigation Support (ALS). A couple of weeks ago I was asked if I was interested in moving into information security and I accepted a new position. I'm still with the same firm and everything, just now I do information security work, aka I keep the bad guys out of our computer systems. My new work title is Information System Security Officer or ISSO. So far it has been very interesting and rewarding work. |
6/26/09 | James and John have taken up horse back riding and are enjoying the weekly rides. Here are some photos from a few weeks ago when they rode. |
6/19/09 | John has been cancer free for about two years now and the kids are all enjoying the summer. As Father's day approaches, I am very grateful to be a dad of my four wonder children Jodie, George, James and John and a grandfather to Noah. Below are photos from a beach trip we all took to celebrate my parent's fiftieth anniversary. Dinki and my nephew Ian were unable to attend the beach trip, and are missing from the family photo below. |
3/21/09 | Today James and John and I spent the morning fish at a pond next to my house. We caught a bunch of bream and cleaned them and ate them for lunch. It was a great morning together. |
3/12/09 | Been traveling a lot for work this year and haven't been able to update this site as often as I would like. Here's what's been happening the past couple of months: All of John's test results came back and he is still cancer free, that makes 19 months now, praise God!. The three boys had and I a chance to go down to Miami the weekend of 3/6 to see my daughter's family. Kyle, a friend of the family also came with George. Cisco, Jodie and baby Noah are all doing great and we all could not believe how big Noah already is. 
John and Noah 
James and Noah 
Jodie, Cisco and John 
George and Kyle in the ocean, it was chilly! |
2/5/2009 | Dinki and John had a safe trip to New York for John's quarterly checkup. while we don't have all the final results, everything we have heard remains positive. We should have all the final test results in a couple of weeks. |
| 1/30/2009 | Dinki and John are preparing to go to NY next week for John's eighteen month checkup. John is doing well, as are George and James. |
| 1/29/2009 | Noah is growing every day and Jodie and Cisco are loving the addition to their family. Jodie had to go to the emergency room earlier this week as she had come down with a bad case of Mastitis. she is doing much better now. |
1/21/2009 2:20p | Noah Lundin Pellerano was born today at 2:30 and he weighed 7 pounds and 11 ounces and was 20 inches long. My daughter Jodie and my son-in-law Cisco are so excited to have their new son. Jodie and Noah are doing great and he is already nursing well. This makes George, James and John an uncle and me a grandfather. Thank you Lord Jesus for this new healthy baby! Congratulations Cisco and Jodie! 
Jodie looks great for having just had a baby an hour and a half ago. |
| 1/20/2009 | We woke up to about four inches of snow this morning. It was so beautiful driving through the country and looking at all the snow. The boys were very excited. |
1/14/2009 | John went for a second checkup today since getting back from Miami and the doctor said everything was normal, so we're happy about that. He goes for his quarterly checkup the first week of February. Click on the photo for a link to some photos from the past few weeks. |
12/29/2008 | They have ruled out Early Reropharyngeal Celulitis and are still running tests to determine the problem. John had a good nights sleep and is feeling much better with no more neck pain, so it appears the antibiotics he is receiving is working. We are hoping that if everything looks good, we will be released tomorrow. |
12/28/2008 1:30p | John has been complaining of his neck hurting for several days and yesterday he began running a fever. John's fever went up to 103 today and I took him to Miami Children's Hospital where they did a CT scan and blood work to determine what the problem might be. They are saying that he has a number of swollen lymph nodes in the rear of his neck and are admitting him and have started him on antibiotics. The diagnosis is: Early Reropharyngeal Celulitis and we are fortunate to have found it now before it developed into an abscess. Please pray for John's healing, as we do not know how long we will have to stay in the hospital. |
12/25/2008 | Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday Jesus. The boys had a wonderful Christmas today. We opened presents, played scrabble, cooked, backed, drove remote control cars outside and watched UnderDog. It was a great day. John is doing very well and will be going for his 18 month checkup in February. The current news is that he's still cancer free. He turned eight this month and had a great birthday. James (10) got braces recently, as he was having trouble eating things because his two front teeth were growing crooked. He's only had them for a few weeks and already his teeth are looking great. He got in the Christmas spirit by having Red and Green rubber bands put on his braces. George is continuing to grow and is now taller than me. He continues to do excel in playing the guitar and is in his second year of high school Latin. He is doing a great job with driving with his learners permit and we are very proud of that. My son-in-law Cisco turned twenty-five today - Happy Birthday Cisco. He and my daughter Jodie are expecting their first child in late January. They are living down in Miami. Jodie is teaching high school students in science and Cisco works at a very nice restaurant in North Miami. James and John and I are heading to Miami tomorrow to visit with them for a few days over the Christmas break. |
10/20/08 | We just received John's test results from his October checkup and everything looks great. He's now fifteen months cancer free, so thank you for your prayers for John. Please also pray for James, George and Dinki and I, as this cancer has an effect on all of us. |
10/8/08
| John and I spent the last three days in New York city for his fifteen month checkup. We flew up on a commercial flight but we were blessed to be able to fly back to Charlotte with a flight via the Corporate Angel Network. We had a lot of fun hanging out at the Jet Aviation hangar waiting to go home today. While waiting, John got to meet some folks from the New York Giants. The pilot of their plane gave him a Giants hat and a photo of their plane. Another kind lady at Jet Aviation gave John a model of a P-38 Lightning fighter plane, which was used extensively during WWII. It is always so nice to see the generosity of so many people in action. John had a great time running around and playing with the plane and would not take off his new Giants hat.
John was a real champ through all the tests. Every three months we must return to NY to go through the following tests:
- Install IV
- Multiple blood tests
- CT Scan
- MRI (Lay perfectly still for an hour and 20 minutes)
- MIBG Bone Scan (Lay still for forty minutes) - John is given a thyroid blocker prior to this test as he is injected with a radioactive isotope that if absorbed into his thyroid, could cause the thyroid to permanently shutdown. This is one of the most important test, as it can detect the cancer's return in any part of the body.
- Bone Marrow and Aspirate surgery where John is put under anesthesia for them to remove four small samples from the front and rear of his pelvis area to check for recurring cancer.
As he was laying on the MRI Table Tuesday night, I got to my knees and just started praying that John would be at peace and sleep, as he was twitching and moving quite a bit at the start of the scan. I messaged Dinki and the boys to also pray and within moments John was fast asleep and did not move the rest of the scan. Once more God has shown himself mighty on behalf of this little soldier of his.
We returned home tonight to a rainy Charlotte, but boy was it nice to be back home. We should have the results of all the tests in a couple of weeks.... Please Keep Praying for us all!
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| 9/28/2008 | It was time to pack up everything and head back to Charlotte, but there was one last thing John needed...a ride in a new Ferrari. There were sitting out front of our hotel when we were getting ready to leave and someone was nice enough to give John a ride in one of them. What a way to end a Make-A-Wish trip.
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9/25/08 | LEGOLAND, San Diego, CA - John's Make A Wish came true today! We had the most amazing day at LEGOLAND. It all started as we arrived in the parking lot at LEGOLAND. My Sister Rhonda and her husband Mike and there two sons Jonathon and Benjamin (Bebe) surprised John by driving in from Phoenix, AZ to spend the day with us at LEGOLAND. It was a cool and beautiful; a perfect day to spend outdoors. John had an amazing day and there was so much smiling and laughing among us all that it was practically contagious. It was such a blessing to see them all enjoy the day together. Thank you Make A Wish for putting this together for John! |
9/24/08 9:15p PST | It's Make A Wish time for John and his brothers James and George. They were picked up by a limousine this morning and taken to the airport for a flight to San Diego. They were joined by Rick (dad) and their grandfather, Papa. We were greeted at the airport by James from the San Diego Make A Wish chapter and brought over to the Hyatt Manchester hotel, were John was greeted by about 20 of the Hyatt staff. It was a great honor to be treated so well. Everyone has been so kind and generous to us, thank you all! It's been a great day of fun and laughter. We visited the USS Midway Aircraft carrier and enjoyed swimming at the hotel pool and just relaxing. Tomorrow we head out to Lego Land for the day. If you want to see the photos full size, just click on the slide show below to be taken to the album of today. |
9/9/2008 | It's hard to believe that a year has passed since John was exposed to chicken pox in NY and ended up with a case of the shingles. For the past year John has had to take a pill three times a day to prevent the reocurrence of the shingles or chicken pox. Well I'm pleased that this weekend he got his last dose of Acyclovir. It's such a relief as parents not to have to remember three times a day to give him the medicine. Dinki had come up with a great system of tracking when we were to give him the medicine, but even with a great system, it was still a lot of work to administer three doses every day. It's a big relief that John is no longer having to take any medicine. John's next big thing is his Make-A-Wish happening near the end of this month. He has chosen to go to LegoLand in California and is very excited about it. If you'd like to drop john a line or a card for encouragement, you can send it to: John Sumrall PO Box 37088 Charlotte, NC 28237 or Send an email to John using this form:
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9/1/2008 | I've been slow again to post, but I'm back online now. All of Johns's final test results look great and showed no signs of Neuroblastoma returning. James, John and I went to the beach a few weeks ago and had a great time playing in the waves. Unfortunately James got an ear infection the second day over the weekend and had to spend the rest of the week out of the water. James had a great attitude about the infection and although he was dissapointed, he didn't allow it to spoil his fun. |
7/24/2008 | The boys and I drove up to attend the Children's Neuroblastoma conference in Chicago last weekend. they had a great playroom for the younger kids to do activities while the parents attended the conference. the conference was put on by the Children's Neuroblastoma Cancer Foundation (CNCF). It was an excellent two day conference and I learned about many exciting treatments that are being developed towards finding a cure for this cancer. Dr. Cheung, who is the primary researcher at MSKCC and probably the leading authority on the topic worldwide spoke several times and offered a lot of encouragement. As I heard other doctors from other facilities speak about other types of treatments and the results theywere having, I felt very confident that God had led Dinki and I to MSKCC to help save John. The other presenters at the conference did not have the same level of promising results that MSKCC has had with the 3F8 antibody treatment. CNCF provides research grants to many hospitals and universities around the country and is working to find a cure for this dreadful disease. Neuroblastoma is the most common solid tumor cancer found in children, second only to brain tumors. Still, only about 625 children a year are diagnosed with it here in the United States and very little funding is available to help with research. If you'd like to make a donation of any size to help the CNCF continue to fund Neuroblastoma research, please click here to go to their donation site. Any amount you can give will help move us one step closer to finding a cure. The drive took about fifteen hours each way from Chicago. Fortunately, George was a great help in taking turns driving. He got his learner's permit earlier that week and he did an excellent job on the drive to Chicago. James and John played and slept in the back seat and overall seemed to have a good time. John's health is great and he is running and playing like a normal seven year old child. Sorry for no pictures lately. Our digital camera just up and died the other day and I have not had a chance to replace it yet. |
| 7/13/2008 | The trip to NY went well and all of John's test results so far are showing no return of the cancer. We should have all the results back in another week, but it looks like we can celebrate on year of John being cancer free! |
7/9/2008 | We had some free time Tuesday and got to spend it at the Bronx Zoo with my cousin Paige (Christine's sister) and her three year old daughter. The boys were glad to meet new cousins and James did a great job of watching over and helping his little cousin. Today was a very long day. We started by being at the hospital for 7:30 am and didn't get done until 6:40 pm. John had a CT scan, a checkup and a very long MRI. He did a great job of lying still during the MRI, which lasted over an hour. If you've never had an MRI, it's a little tough to explain. Think of yourself lying inside a round metal garbage can with about four or five inches free on each side of you. Then imagine while you are in that metal garbage can, someone comes along with sticks and metal rods and beats on the sides of the garbage can for an hour while you are forced to lay perfectly still in the garbage can. If you start moving during the MRI, they have to repeat the process again. John did a fantastic job of being still the whole time. Tonight when we got back to the Ronald house, the NBA was serving dinner for the house. We had burgers, hotdogs, chicken, watermelon and s'mores. It was an excellent meal and a nice way to end a really long day. Thanks for all of you that continue to pray and support us. |
| 7/7/2008 | The boys and I arrived in NY today for John's one year checkup. My cousin Christine that lives in Brooklyn picked us up from the airport and dropped us off at the Ronald McDonald house. Christine has been such a blesing to us each time we've come to New York. whether it's transportation, information, or just a different place to hang out, she's always been there to help us. |
7/2/2008 | George and John are continuing to have a great time at Camp Care. Today was pirate today and there were lots of water fights and other crazy things happening. Looks like they are having a blast! James and I are getting to enjoy a few days together and planning some special times where we can grow closer together and learn more about following Jesus. |
7/1/2008 | John and George are off at Camp Care this weekend and are having a great time. We are so glad that they have this opportunity to get away from their normal routines and enjoy a change of scenery. As you can see, they're having a great time. |
6/28/2008 | The boys have really been enjoying the summer. John's favorite activity lately is swimming, he just can't get enough of the water. Yesterday the boys and I went to Ray's Splash Planet to swim and slide. George is enjoying reading and playing his guitar. He continues to grow in his musical abilities as he has begun teaching himself some piano and it sounds very nice. They all enjoy playing their Nintendo DS or playing the Wii together when they aren't doing other things. Monday John and George head off to Camp CARE (Cancer Ain't Really the End) for a week of fun as they take a break from their normal routines. The camp is fully staffed with doctors and nurses to help the kids if there are any medical problems. Only one sibling can attend with the patient, so James is planning on going with John next year. The kittens continue to grow and are getting more fun to play with and watch as they wrestle around with one another. One of the neighbors puppies wandered over near the kittens and there mom and was quickly taught a lesson about mothers and their young. |
6/25/2008 | 
U.S. Attorney General Mukasey was in town today and James had the opportunity to meet him. It was really exciting for James, as his big Brother George had gotten to meet AG Gonzales a few years before. |
6/18/2008 | The boys are enjoying the summer and everyone is well. We are getting ready for John's one year checkup in a few weeks in NY. John is doing so well that we are meeting with a long-term care cancer doctor who will advise us on how to best manage John's health as continues his life without cancer. Click on the picture to go to the photos -----> |
5/25/2008 | James, George and I had birthdays during the past couple of months. James had a great time playing LaserQuest and George and his friends had a silly string war. John is still strong and living pretty much a normal life. The boys and I went rock climbing and repelling last weekend and had a lot of fun doing it. They are so strong and willing to try anything. Please continue praying for our family. |
5/6/2008 | James, John and I stopped by a sporting goods store and they were looking at the various weight machines. John and James were fooling around with one of the weight machines and James was trying to lift 185 pounds , but it wouldn't budge. John jumped up on the bench and lifted it right away. James continued to increase the weight to 200 pounds. John pushed with all his might and lifted it also. After James watched John do it so easily, he was very confused as to why he couldn't lift the weight. I then adjusted the bar height for him and he also was able to lift it, but for a few minutes, he thought John was the strongest boy ever. |
4/29/2008 |  This morning I received the sad news that Austin Melgar passed away last Thursday. Austin was seven years old and had been fighting Neuroblastoma for two and a half years.
"Austin Melgar was and always will be a joy to his family and an inspiration to the community in which he lived. His qualities of endurance, cheerfulness, and passion for life will be remembered by all who knew him." quoted from his lifestory Neuroblastoma - by Rick Sumrall
Neuroblastoma, what can it do?
It takes life from a child and their family too!
It comes like a thief so sudden and soon So many are left in the wake of its monsoon
The family's once thought that they were immune Now they cry, pray and impugn
They say we grow stronger in difficult trials But what of those left in the funeral aisles?
I hate this disease and all it does do
As it seems that it has its own venue
I want children free from this dreaded disease As are the flowers and lilies and trees
For the memory of Austin, Ellie, Grace, Lillie, Lucas and James Let this disease be put down for it is insane
I want it to go before another child dies How many must end before our wet eyes?
Father to you I once again cry
Spare these dear children, not another let die
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4/23/2008 | After waiting over three months for Microsoft to fix our OfficeLive website, it's finally fixed! John completed his three month checkup and he is still cancer free. That's nine months now that he has been free of this horrible disease. James and John have fallen in love with the Webkinz stuffed animals and have collected quite a few so far. They love going on line to www.webkinz.com to play with their virtual pets. 
This was from an Easter egg hunt a few weeks ago. He's got all his hair back! |
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 | We have a prayer card available that you can print out to help you and your family to pray for John and our family. Just click on the card to download and print it. |
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