Day +74 Update

Sunday afternoon we were released from Children's. We hope for good! Anna is on insulin as we suspected, a long acting dose given each night, and a carb corrector, which means we have to count carbs and do the math to find out how many units of insulin we must give. Anna is doing well though she gets frustrated with the whole process especially when she is hungry! Our prayer is that her levels will get back to normal as her prednisone is almost done. At this point, we are looking forward to a very busy week next week as day 80 approaches (Tuesday!). Monday she still has her normal appointments with a couple of extras such as the podiatrist and a dental exam. Then on Tuesday she will have a bunch of tests, including another bone marrow aspiration and skin biopsy. After Tuesday, we will have appointments with the green team to go over the results and to discuss the plan for the future. As long as everything goes well, Anna will have her Hickman line removed on August 19!!!!! We also will have a class to take on what to expect for the next year once we move back to Bremerton.

At our last appointment, the nurse was talking about transferring Anna's information over to Dr. Irwin in Tacoma. Wow! Are we really on the tail end of Seattle?!!! Seems impossible and yet it is so close I can almost taste it!! Craig and the boys are in the process of getting our Bremerton house ready for us to move back in. We are very excited! Already, we have started bringing things back that we aren't using here.

This time has been quite educational and life altering for all of us! The family has endured and we praise God for His strength in our lives! Though we are still very human and have our moments of emotional weariness, He has proven faithful through it all. I think our family bond will be even tighter after all of this, though it was tight before. Hopefully, our relationship with Christ will also be stronger than ever before!!! The word "cancer" still brings a startling jolt to my heart, and it seems crazy to think we've been down that road, are still traveling down it. But it also brings an awareness I've never known, an urgency to pray for those traveling down the same path. A sense of oneness with those who have done this in the past, and hopefully, an ability to minister to others that have yet to go there. This brings to mind a very precious portion of Scripture. I Corinthians 1:3-7 says, "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation." What a beautiful text! Knowing we are at times allowed to suffer affliction so that we may be able to comfort others like no other could! And at the same time, we too, were comforted by those who had been there before us! God surrounded us with a great mixture of believers to minister to us and unbelievers that we might witness the Love of Christ to! We came here with the thought that we were only on a mission to see non-believers in a place of no hope and to share the hope that lies within us, but God used this as a time to also show His care for us in sending us believers who would minister to our needs as well! We have definitely felt the Love of God like no other time in our lives! I am thankful for this opportunity that He has allowed us to get through to draw us closer to His side! You truly can not know the sweetness of life without also experiencing the bitterness of it!