As 8-year-old Payton Slaymaker sits in the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital receiving radiation to fight a brain tumor, her family and friends hope local residents will come out and support the #PrayForPayton fundraiser Saturday.
The fundraiser is noon to 6 p.m. Saturday at Warsaw Family Worship Center, 1250 Husky Trail, Warsaw, and all proceeds will go to Payton’s family.
Her parents, Kimberly and Andrew Slaymaker, are with Payton in Cincinnati. Their youngest child, Avery, 5, is in Warsaw with family while Payton gets treatment.
Payton was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), a brain tumor found in a part of the brain stem called the pons. The pons control essential bodily functions such as a heartbeat, breathing, swallowing, eye movement, eyesight and balance.
“She was diagnosed about a month ago,” Kimberly said, after she noticed Payton acting like it was difficult to see things.
“She was tilting her head down to look over like if you had reading glasses on, to look over it, and then she would close one of her eyes to kind of see,” she said. “So, I took her to Grossnickles to see if she just needed glasses or something.”
Instead, the doctors at Grossnickle Eye Center told the Slaymakers they need to take Payton to get an MRI.
The tumor was deemed inoperable, Kimberly said, because it’s on her brain stem.
“Option wise, we’re doing six weeks of radiation and here they can put her on a trial drug,” she said. “She’s a really tough girl. We are praying and believing that it goes away, but they can’t guarantee anything.”
According to defeatdipg.org, DIPG affects children almost exclusively with about 200 to 400 cases in the United States per year between the ages of 4 and 11.
The outlook is bleak, but her family is rallying for the community to send prayers up and come lay some money down to help the family afford their unexpected expenses.
Kimberly’s sister, Kaila Stafford, organized Saturday’s event and said it’s a family-friendly day of bounce houses, games, sno cones, popcorn and a meal of hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, macaronis salad and applesauce. Cost for the meal is $8 for adults and $4 for children.
There will also be a silent auction and a raffle.
“We’ve got everything from a garage heating unit to car washes to massages, facials, hair products,” Stafford said. “The small items will be raffle, we have a family game basket, a lottery tree. Just a lot of great stuff.”
A gospel sings starts at 6 p.m.
Payton said she will be watching the event on Facebook. And, if the $10,000 goal is reached, Payton gets to shave her dad’s, her grandpa’s and her pastor’s beard or hair.
“It’s a little tough and a little slow and it’s a little hard right now,” Payton said Thursday.
“I have to lay on a bed and then it scans me with lasers so they can take pictures of me and see what’s inside of me and put a mask on me. Sometimes it makes you tired and sometimes it makes you kind of sleepy and a little dizzy,” she said. She said she always “has to get her blood drawn,” but she’s “used to it.”
The Claypool Elementary School third-grader likes doing crafts and dancing hip hop, but she thinks about her current situation often.
She said, “I always have to do this, I’ll be doing this for a little while and it’ll be done with maybe soon, whenever we hear the good news.”
For more information about the event, visit the #PrayForPayton Fundraiser Facebook page. For those who want to donate but can’t attend on Saturday, a fund has been set up at MutualBank under “Payton’s Fund.”
