She has been battling cancer for almost two years, but young Payton Sernick, a Grade 2 student at Sacred Heart/ Ecole Sacre Coeur School, exudes enthusiasm as she talks about what she can do to help other kids battle their early demons.
Payton’s parents, Andrea and Cheyenne Sernick noticed their daughter in deep pain on a regular basis shortly after she started first grade. It got to the point where the youngster couldn’t walk. A referral to a specialist in Regina confirmed a diagnosis of precursor B-cell lymphoblastic leukemia/lymphoma.
It was right then, the battle began and has continued on a daily basis. It’s been 18 months of intense treatments with almost a year of daily treatments including chemotherapy.
“Actually, she takes five different types of chemo,” said her mother, in a calm voice, while chatting with her daughter and negotiating with Payton’s brother Beckham, almost at the same time.
“For quite a while we’d be overnight at the Regina General Hospital but spend the days at the Allan Blair Clinic in the Pasqua Hospital,” said Sernick. “We were actually residents of Regina for 11 months. We rented a house there,” she said.
Now the daily oral chemo treatments can be administered from their Estevan home and Payton can return to some sense of a normal routine by going to school on a pretty regular basis and catching up on her studies and seeing her friends. She’s managed to maintain a good educational pace, in spite of the huge distraction in her life. With an IV port, the youngster has no difficulty in accepting treatments and she is determined to beat back the cancer. She’s also determined to spread the good word about the need to have the Childrens’ Hospital in Saskatoon completed.
Payton receives a lumbar puncture once a month through the port, but she still doesn’t miss many school days. It’s been a pretty steady stream of school days since February. She will have an occasional off-day and she’s usually pretty tired in the evenings, after a full day at school, but there isn’t much that will deter her from her self-determined mission to raise $5,000 through the sale of lollipop candy suckers.
“We had stopped at Costco in Regina on the way home, she spotted a big jar of suckers on the shelf and declared that she needed that jar of candy,” said her mother, with a chuckle. “Naturally I said, no way, but then she told me her plan, which she was just forming in her mind right there. By the time we were driving back, we had to stop in Fillmore to buy some paper so she could write out her complete plan to sell the suckers.”
“Yes, cancer sucks,” Payton chimes in, using the phrase she coined.
Her two oconologist friends in Regina are Dr. Tanya Brown and Dr. Mohammad Haq. Dr. Brown nominated Payton to be one of about five or six children in the province to advocate as a junior ambassador for the Children’s Hospital Foundation of Saskatchewan.
She’s also been nominated as a potential candidate to serve as a Champion Child.
Payton will be at the forefront helping with the Dairy Queen’s Miracle Treat Day this summer since the ambassadors get to assist one way or another with 13 major sponsors. She’s also booked to sell some suckers at an upcoming Re/Max golf tournament in August, as part of the sponsorship arrangement.
The worst part of her continual visits to the clinic?
“The needles. But the best part is I get to do some crafts,” she notes, immediately turning a negative into a positive.
“I think she’s just starting to line up the schools in Estevan for those candy sales,” her mother said with a smile, a forewarning that the community is about to be served up a big attack of cute in the next few months. They have already wrapped up pledges from the Estevan Rotary Club, where Andrea is a member in solid standing.
The website is being formed now where donors will be able to visit the Children’s Hospital Foundation of Saskatchewan and make a donation in Payton’s name and read her story.
She had Stage 4 lymphoma and leukemia, the odds were tough, but they’re better now.
By the way, the diagnosis was made on Halloween, the doctor who delivered the challenging news was rewarded with some wrapped Halloween candy, courtesy of Payton. That’s the way this tiny fighter rolls. Negative to positive, almost instantly.
