Layla has been asleep all day. She's weaker 2day. Wasn't interested in ice chips & cried when I tried 2 hold her. She's peaceful when asleep. . . http://laylagrace.org

Coping with the death of any loved one is heartbreaking. Coping with the death of a small cherished child must be a thousand times worse.

That's why the epic struggle of 2-year-old Layla Grace and her mom and dad against a rare, unforgiving form of cancer, even watching from hundreds of miles away, is as riveting as it is excruciating.

Layla Grace, who lives with her parents and two older sisters in Texas, is in the final throes of an 11-month battle against Stage 4 Neuroblastoma. Her parents have taken her home from the hospital for the last time. She has only days, perhaps just hours, more to live.

Her parents, Ryan and Shanna Marsh, fought valiantly to save their tiny daughter. Even now, facing the realization that she will soon leave them, they remain strong. And they continue to update the blog, and the twitters, with which they have detailed their family's day-to-day struggles against the disease that will ultimately claim their daughter.

"When we took Layla home to pass, the hospice doctors and Dr. R told us what to expect," Ryan Marsh wrote in a recent anguished blog. "It's not easy to sit at home and watch your child die. Our only wish was that if Layla was going to pass, that it be in peace. It hasn't exactly been like that . . . I don't want her to go, but if God is going to take her we just want her to go peacefully, not like this. Lord, not like this."

Throughout the summer and fall and even at Christmas, Layla's family hoped she would be one of the 30 percent of victims who survive this cancer. Early this year, however, they learned it was not to be.

"Dying. Death. Last days. I never imagined that after all . . . Layla has been put through, all the sickness and pain she's had to endure, that the cancer might win," Shanna Marsh wrote on January 25. "I had hope and faith in God that he would heal her little body completely . . . Friday we got news that the cancer was winning . . . I have prayed daily . . . hourly, to God that he take her pain away and heal her completely. He will. I just fear it's not going to be in the way I had hoped."

When Layla's battle finally ends, when she falls asleep for the last time and finally is at peace, her family will be far from alone in their grief.

Across the internet, tens of thousands of readers - not a few of them celebrities in their own right -- regularly check the Marshs' blog. They ached in sympathy as they read how Layla's mom worked to have final pictures taken of the dying toddler with her family, and studied the gorgeous results with tears streaking down their faces. They wept when they learned the toddler, hurting, cries when her parents try to hold her.

Now, the Marshs are hoping their followers will join in the struggle they have launched so publicly to build awareness of the vicious disease that turned their once-vibrant home into a hospice. Days ago, on March 5, in the midst of their agonizing hour-to-hour vigil, Ryan Marsh made time for yet another skirmish in that war: An interview on a Houston radio station during which he detailed the toll Neuroblastoma has taken on his daughter.

To listen, go to http://www.krbe.com and search for layla grace.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: To read the Marsh family's blog, visit http://laylagrace.org)

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My wife also reads the blog on Layla Grace every day as well. You see, our 5 year old son is fighting cancer as well. No, we have not done a radio spot with Ryan Secrest, and we are not likely to. We are, however, part of a rather large pediatric cancer community right here in Chattanooga.

There are between 100 and 120 kids currently in active treatment for all kinds of pediatric cancer right here at T.C. Thompson Hospital. We receive world class care, and I do not hesitate to say that.

We have some incredible kids in this community that are fighting Neuroblastoma, just like Layla Grace. We have a wonderful foundation in Chattanooga that helps the kids and families that are fighting this horrible disease.

Cancer is the leading cause of illness related death in kids under the age of 21. Yet only 2% of all research dollars go to pediatric cancer. Do you know that over 98% of the all of the kids that get diagnosed here in Chattanooga will get treated here as well? There will be no trips to Memphis, only trips to the only Children's Hospital in our area.

Some of you might have heard my wife talk about our experience in a T.C. Thompson's radio spot. We chose Childrens because Chattanooga is our home, and this is where we live.

I urge the citizens of this city and the business leaders as well. Go down and tour Children's Hospital. We are so fortunate to have a facility like this in our city. But it is time to take it to the next level. Chattanooga needs to step up and make a difference for our kids and make this a world class facility.

Chattanooga has a world class aquarium, and we have a downtown that has come a long way in a short amount of time. It's time to do the same for Chattanooga's Children's Hospital.

Chris Ogle
Signal Mountain