It feels like ruins

I have been thinking a lot about ruins lately.  I read a blog post on finding God in the ruins of life.  I read an article about Kay Warren commenting on her son's suicide and a sermon she had heard called "Glorious Ruins" by the pastor of Hillsong in Australia.  I listened to the sermon.  

As I sit here with Abby, who is sleeping now after a hard day of throwing up and being exhausted from a 36 hour chemo infusion, I keep thinking of la Jolla beach and the hours I walked with her as a new baby in the baby bjorn while Mark worked his network job and I learned what it means to be a mom.  All those hopes and dreams for Abby's life were just beginning.  And now here we sit.  It feels like it's all in ruins.  

God has a lot to say about ruins in the bible.  He's into them.  He is a God of hope and redemption.  I plan to dig deeper into those stories and see what God might teach me about himself.  I wanted to share a song with you written by the guy who wrote the book "Finding God in the Ruins".  I haven't read it yet, it just came out.  I plan to.  He and his sister, who has cancer, sang it with their mom.  It really touched my heart, met me in my pain.  Maybe it will encourage you too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-ZQZQ3C1Ic

Possibly the last week of chemo

Abby and I checked into Children's yesterday morning for her week of chemo.  She had a lumbar puncture with chemo which she's had before.  The chemo is called methotrexate.  She is also getting it through her IV for 36 hours.  It's the one that most likely caused the GI sores that gave her so much pain last month.  This dose is a bit lower and her ANC was 1400 yesterday when we started so that's all in her favor.  She is napping now since she was up last night with some nausea.  We are still on isolation from the C-Diff but it's not too bad.  She just can't leave her room but hopefully we aren't here past Saturday.  She gets her last Erwinea shot Thursday morning so that is a celebration! She has come a long way in being able to stay calm with those.  When I think of where we were at the beginning of all of this in terms of her anxiety, I am so thankful that she has come this far.  Every day is something different, something new.  No day has been like we thought it would be so we have just stopped having expectations (as best we can).  I am sure there is freedom in that but I'm not quite there yet! I'm so thankful for Mark, his personality does much better with constant uncertainty.  I am often amazed at his ability to stay laughing in the midst of this.  It's so good for our family.  Many nights, after dinner, he will spend time just being silly with Anna and Lily.  He jokes with the doctors and nurses and is a light in this dark place.  We are both scared, of course, but the lightness in Mark reminds me that I can let go and relax, be present.  I'm not in control anyway so being hyper-vigilant does nothing but negative things.

Hopefully we will all be home together by Saturday and enjoying a visit from Mark's folks.  Next week will be the bone marrow test that will tell us if we go forward with the BMT or look at other options to try to get Abby's cancer cell percentage to zero.  We'd love prayers for that test.  Hope you are all having a great week, enjoying the coming of spring!

Daddy-Daughter Dinner

Mark took the girls to dinner since they missed the annual Butterfly Kisses Dance. They are going for japanese, of course! Abby passed her counts today so she is ok for chemo tomorrow. It's a 4-5 day inpatient stay starting tomorrow. Hopefully it will seem like a breeze compared to February's long stay.