Saturday, January 08, 2005

Hopeful for a Sabbath

Once again I’m out of my morning daze enough to realize that I do have a child with Leukemia. Maybe I’m just a bit dense in that way, but it’s taking a while to sink in. Actually, I think I was on to that fact a bit sooner this morning than normal. On about the 4th call from Abby, every 2 hours last night, to go “potty” I was pretty keyed in to the fact that something was different with this picture than say, 2 weeks ago when we all were sleeping through the night. Maybe that is one of the side effects of the drugs… frequent urination, I’ll have to look through that thick gray binder that they gave us. The only problem with doing that is then I have to read through all of the side effects, not my idea of “light” reading.

Hopefully she’ll be less grumpy than she has been. You know, when she was a baby she cried every night from 5-7pm, “happy hour” we named the time. After a couple months of that we started to call her ‘Crabigail’, but we soon pulled the name because we didn’t want it to stick. I’m praying that today she will be feeling more like her self. I want to see her get outside and play today, walk around our house instead of always wanting to be carried, and smile that big bright smile that lights up a room. I want to have a normal family Sabbath type day today and rest in God’s peace and provision. That is something we have been doing lately, in the last year, having a Sabbath. Just a day of rest, a day to not do any normal work, a family day, and a day to rest in God’s arms. Pray that we can have that type of day today, we could really use a Sabbath rest.

Abby did pretty well yesterday from what I heard, I had my first day back to work so it is all second hand info, but good info none the less. I think what has been making her so whiney is the fact that she hadn’t pooped since we left the hospital. I know, I’m talking about poop, but for her this could be a medical emergency. No really, let me explain… Abby is now getting to a place where her white blood cell count is getting low, white blood cells are a big part of the bodies immunity. If she gets a cut it has a higher chance to get infected when her counts are low, so if she is constipated, well lets just say she could get a cut in a place that has a high likelihood of getting infected. That would not be good. The doctor gave us paper orders to take with us if she ever gets an infection or just spikes a fever of 101.5 or above. If that happens we put everyone in the car and drive down to the hospital to check her in to Pres. St. Lukes.

Well so much more that I could say, but I’ll save it for another day. I've also got to go help give her the morning meds, and put the pulse/oxygen monitor on her toe. Thanks again for you prayers and support of Abby and our family. Have a good Sabbath!

Out.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi family! As Shad and I are sitting in our house enjoying our Sabbath and cherishing our sleeping daughter we are sending up continual prayers for you guys to be able to rest in God's peace and love today. We miss you so much and it kills us that we can't all be together during these times. Everytime I write a comment I am always searching for what I can say and I can never quite find the words. But that's okay! I will just rest in the fact that God knows my heart and inner most feelings which are so hard to express. I know that He will find a way to speak them straight to your heart. Loving all of you and missing you terribly. Megan

Anonymous said...

Mark,
I just wanted you to know what a blessing your blogs are to more people than you realize. People that have not met you have commented to me about what looks to them to be a great faith that you have. I already knew that, because, of course, I know you and Tiff so well. I'm just so sorry that it's taken Abby's health challenges to witness that faith to others. I really don't understand this (my faith isn't as strong as yours, but I'm trying). I was reading some old journal entries of mine today and was reminded of God's great faithfulness. He really is in control and, when I shut up long enough to listen, he reminds me of this wonderful fact. Stay grounded in that, I know I'm trying to.
Love you and praying for Abby and all that love her,
Claud

Anonymous said...

Just another note to say I'm praying for a speedy, non-eventful healing process for sweet Abby.

God bless all of you!
Anita "Friends of Allie"