Shayla saying bye before heading to the Phillies game.

Can’t sleep so I’ll reflect and upload some pictures. (Earlier tonight Shayne posted a few down in the previously posted entries. Mom, there’s a really cute one of Shayla hugging Christi upon our arrival late Friday night at Ronald.)

Surprise: Shayne hung up his phone and told me, “Aunt V trimmed our bushes.” (Shayne’s sister and I have this running joke about Shayne’s lack of bush trimming. He either butchers them or lets them get out on control. So it didn’t surprise me that she trimmed them, but it did surprise me because she lives in ARIZONA !! Apparently she flew in to surprise us for Labor Day weekend and instead we surprised her by not being home. (Sorry, V! Love you!)

Last night Christi rated that her pain was down to a 7.5 on the 10 scale. (For the previous 48 hours it had been a 15 so we were very happy about that.) She was able to sip some water so we thought Christi was feeling well enough last night to try to get her chemo pills in. That lasted about two minutes before she lost them. At 4AM she told the delightful nurse that her pain was down to a 4. How about that for the power of prayer! The radiation takes a while to work, if it is even going to, so we attribute the fact that she’s feeling better to the steroids she’s on which should help to reduce the swelling of her brain and to relieve that horrible pressure and pain she’s experiencing.

Thank you Sylvia for providing Shayne and I with Holy Communion at Christi’s bedside yesterday and for giving Christi a special blessing since she’s unable to eat.

We had a bit of a scare last night. Christ’s wearing heart monitors and she kept setting the machine off for having irregular heartbeats. Knowing earlier Dr. Maris told us that no one would try to do anything heroic I was very anxious. An EKG was done which turned out fine. It must be her many meds that she’s on.

Sweet Shayla made us cry last night. Even though she’s staying overnight with the Grants and did not want us to drive out to get her when I called and asked her, we found a note she left behind. It said, “Help is my job.” She’s a sweetie!