Worrisome

As you can tell by the late hour, I’m still up. Just a bit ago I returned home after working for hours in my classroom trying to prepare for the first day of school.....most likely just throwing myself into my work which tends to be my distraction and my way to continue living in denial- my preferred method of coping. (“This can’t possibly be happening.”) Ah, well. Let me regress:

Last night I posted on the blog that sweet Sister Gertrude went to be with our Lord. Christi and I cuddled in bed and said our prayers. She picked out a special one just for Sister Gertrude and I told her I thought Sister Gertrude would always be a Guardian Angel always watching over her. She agreed. Then she told me she also thought that Anne Marie’s mommy was also her Guardian Angel (The beautiful Kaylyn P. died of cancer last fall) “because she must have arranged for Anne Marie and I to be in the same group at YMCA day camp when we became friends and she must have told her to be home when I rode my bike to her house tonight and got to play with her.” (Shayne went too and enjoyed his time with the wonderful Tony!) That time I agreed with her.

Well, this morning, I learned from some of Christi’s sweet followers that is was Sister Gertrude’s sister (who is also a Sister at the convent) who passed away. I’m so sorry for my mistake and I knew Christi, our little jokester, would think that was pretty funny when she woke up and I told her of my error. Well, she did and she said, “Now we’ll keep praying for her and we can go visit her like last week.” Our thoughts are with Sister Gertrude with her own failing health and with the death of her sister.

Christi finished her masterpiece, which I’ll share the story behind the creation with you sometime. For the little canvas she mixed the four basic colors exactly to Shayla’s specifications and she painted Shayla’s hands as Shayla created her “modern art”. Christi and I raved about each application of paint as Shayla beamed with pride. It also turned out lovely! After a nice visit with my mom and Paw Paw Joe today we went to the frame and mat shop and made our selections. They should be ready in two weeks.

Christi has been handling her chemo just fine and we have not noticed any side effects (yet). I am so thankful to be married to the greatest husband and father on the planet. (Each dose of chemo- morning and night, takes him approximately 45-60 minutes to prepare. He carefully measures out her chemo powder and carefully smashes and stacks it into all of the capsules since she prefers swallowing many horse pills to mixing it with Slimfast. Shayne is simply amazing and I love him so much!) Tonight Shayne nformed me that Christi’s sweet friend Sarah called so while she took her chemo she chatted happily away slowly downing all the pills; it was a tremendous surprise blessing and made the chemo “a breeze”! THANK YOU, SARAH B.!

Christi’s blood counts were drawn this morning at the hospital and then I drove her to Dr. Vela’s for the required physical exam. Next we went to get the items on her school supply list. (Did I mention this gal is BEYOND THRILLED about the start of school? She has the days marked down on her calendar and asks us a few times a day what day is it. Last night she found her class names listed on the school’s website. She will have 16 students in her class this year. She has her backpack all ready and can’t wait to go to Open House to prepare everything “just so” in her desk.) Well, I guess I put it off long enough now…..

At the store while I was waiting in line I called the hospital to get the results. My heart fell when I received the platelet number of “60”. (Down another “ten” from last week, ugh!) The LDH wasn’t ready yet and quite frankly, I wasn’t ready to hear it yet either. I tried to be very upbeat during the rest of our shopping, yet I was ill. Driving home I couldn’t stand it any longer, I called the hospital to get her LDH level and again I told myself not to cry in front of Christi. Again the LDH was up (301). I met Grandma Nee Nee, who was watching Shayla so I didn’t have to drag her along, and went inside to email Dr. Maris. I didn’t want to learn of his thoughts so I didn’t check my email for about 7 hours.

“This is certainly worrisome,” is not exactly what I wanted to hear from “Mr. Optimistic” (Dr. Maris) when I did check my email. ARGH!! He has notified us to let him know right away if she feels bad and that he wants her to finish the week of Fenretnide if she can. I just want it to all go away, so I’ll do what I can to pretend that it is. Tomorrow, I’ll be scooping her up (along with a “big” friend) and taking her to one of her favorite places on the planet – Cedar Point!

With that all of my shoulders, I'll try to get some sleep now! (Oh, I can always hope, right??!)