No News is Good News

It has been over a week since we last posted, and we try to keep our posts to at least once a week.  As we hear in the hospital, "no news is good news."  Things have been going smoothly here.  We had an incredible last round of steroids.  We had two packs of bacon precooked and waiting to be eaten during cravings, and eight pre-filled syringes of codeine prepared for leg pain on withdrawal day.  I properly cleaned and disinfected the microwave for multiple microwavings of magic bags, and arranged our schedule to accomodate for steroids.

Caleb experienced NO leg pain, he only ate bacon once a day, and he had upswings in his moods, not just downswings.  This was SO unusual!!  We're still kind of reeling from it.  It is such a puzzle that he had a completely different experience this time round.  He craved foods, but this time his cravings included strawberries, bananas, cucumbers, carrots, and guacamole.  Not just bacon, peanut butter, and tuna.  On withdrawal day (the day he stops taking the Dex), I kept waiting for the pain to set in, and it never did.

More of a lesson that we never know what to expect.  It was great, a blessing!  We'll take it!  We don't know what we'll experience next time.  As in most things with parenting, it's helpful for me to set my expectation low and then hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised! 

We've been doing a lot of talking with our church about pain and lament.  I'm coming to understand how all of our experiences, particularly our difficult ones, are never left in our past.  We can never "get over" an experience.  We learn how to incorporate our experiences into who we are now, and hopefully we can keep moving on.  Kind of like a snowball, picking up the snow as it rolls on.  Our hardships become us, as much as our successes and joys.  Our challenge is to make all of this fit into one person. 

While we've been talking about this with our church, I'm also struck by how the task of absorbing this pain is not possibly done on our own.  And I suppose then I'm struck by how necessary it is to help people connect with others when they experience pain and hardship, so that it neither is ignored nor does it become solely who we are.  Somehow in the sharing of our experiences, we can together make a more complete picture of what we might call the Kingdom of God.  It doesn't do to isolate those who experience pain or hardship, and it doesn't do to isolate yourself when you experience the same.  Thankfully, we don't have to be alone. 

Thank you for helping us to not feel alone.  In sharing of your hardships, we divide the burden.  In sharing your joys, we multiply our happiness. 

I've been reading about Baby Molly, across the country, going through chemo for leukemia at one month of age.  Check out their story.  Pray for Molly and her family. 

Here in Hamilton, we have clinic tomorrow.  Hopefully routine.  I'm hoping to get results from Caleb's echocardiogram that we had a few weeks ago.  I'd really love his clot to be gone.  No new is good news, and so I kind of think that maybe there was nothing significant to report.  This could mean no change, or it could mean it's gone.  At some point I'll post a picture of all of the needled syringes that we've used since he started the blood thinners.  I'm waiting for a celebration picture, when we're all done the needles.  Suffice to say the pile is growing. 

The weather forecast is calling for an east wind.  Here in Hamilton, that means snow.  I hope we get some more!  Skiing calls. 

Peace.