Day: June 19, 2010

I’ve been awake since 5am when Geli woke to use the toilet.

She went to bed last night around 8:30-9:00pm and at 6:30 this morning is still asleep. She only woke twice last night and every time was able to get straight back to sleep. I’m so thankful that she’s able to get some good rest. As her momma, I worry about things like that…..you know, getting enough rest and not being too worn out…..Sometimes its the little things that kinda stick with us.

Yesterday was a good day and a hard day.

So much of life is that dichotomy of good and bad, joy and pain, peace and fear, strength and weakness and yet…..we continue on!

Some….some very tiny small sliver of our current reality hit Geli yesterday and combined with everything else overwhelmed her. She was in pain from her surgery. The “realness” of being in the hospital and being sick hit her and made for a bit of an emotional day. I still don’t think that the huge-ness of this all has really hit home – for her or for us.

I know that I’m still processing through the shock of all of this in my way and I believe that Jon and Geli are doing the same. And so are our other kids and our extended family. It’s a day by day thing and just as we learned with Chris and his journey back to a new life – a lot of it comes day by day and you have the strength needed for the day. It’s much easier to focus on what’s happening now than to try to plan and arrange and control everything else. It’s so beyond our control anyway……..

As Jon mentioned in the previous post, we did have a big meeting yesterday with Angelica’s Team and as far and meetings regarding your child and cancer go…..I’d say it was a pretty good one.

We are still at the beginning of this journey and we have a long way to go, but it is good to hear that the prognosis for this kind of cancer is so good.

The Doctor who is in charge of Geli’s case walked us through the different meds that she’d be on over the next 28 days and went through the most common side effects. Over all, while it doesn’t sound that great, it also doesn’t sound that bad….

This is one thing that I’d love specific prayer in regards to….That Angelica would physically be strong through this time and that the “expected” side effects would not affect her negatively.

Some of the most common side effects are things like nausea and constipation and there are other’s but I’m sitting in her room typing this post in the dark and can’t specifically remember each one…..to say that we were overloaded with info yesterday would be an understatement. Fortunately, we have amazing references, notes taken and given to us, a team ready at our call and a whole staff that is willing to go above and beyond to answer any questions we might have.

I do feel an amazing peace about this situation and yesterday was a much better emotional day for me although I do still feel a bit like my “bell’s been rung” or my “boat’s been rocked”. I’ve not been knocked out or drowned, just shaken up some. And….when the emotion hits, I cry….and then I carry on…..because, this is life. This is our life and we will get through this.

I asked the Dr yesterday how long he figured Geli’d been sick for and he guestimated a month or two and in hindsite, we can see how that time line would match up with certain symptoms that she might have had, but also ones that are completely normal for a 13 year old girl….things like fatigue and bone pain and headaches…..

There is nothing we could have done to caught this earlier. There is nothing that we did to cause this. It just “is what it is” and we go from here. Inside her body, the cancer cells double and so that explains how she could seem fine or okay on the Wednesday that she left for camp and then to come home on Friday so sick…..when the cells start to multiply from 10 million to 20 million….well, that’s a much more significant jump as opposed to 1 to 2 and 2 to 4 and 4 to 8…….

They figure that with the start of the chemo…she will start to feel better and we should notice an improvement before this next week is up. I’m looking forward to that. It’s been hard seeing her hurting and just laying in bed. She did finally eat dinner last night and that was probably her most significant meal since our dinner on Wednesday night was interrupted by “that” phone call from our family Dr.

I’m looking forward to seeing what this new day brings. She is enjoying the visitor’s that pop by. I’ll just be honest and say that shorter visits are better than long ones….She likes to see people, but to have to entertain is hard……But she’d love to have you stop by and say hello, maybe play a quick game of cards or let her know what’s going on in your life…..normal things.

She asked her Dr about the possibility of getting to her Grade 7 Graduation Event which is happening next Thursday. They’ve not 100% okay’d that, but they have talked about setting that as a goal and possibly having her go to that on a 4 hour pass. She’d have to come back to the hospital that night and finish up some stuff on Friday…possibly getting to go home on Saturday.

So, we have our first goal……get to the Grade 7 Grad…….

While it doesn’t seem so important to us, in the grand scheme of things – it’s important to her and so therefor…..it’s important. That could also be something else specifically prayed for…that she’d be able to go, that she’d be healthy enough and that her blood counts would be good enough to have to go.

I’d love to see miracles in all of this. I’m expecting to see her do way better than the Dr’s predict what is normal. Thank you for praying. Thank you for your notes of encouragement. Thank you for loving us. I woke up this morning and checked my blackberry and had a ton of e-mails of love and support and I just cried……knowing, hearing, reading about how much we are loved and cared for and supported through this time is HUGE! Thank you! THANK YOU! We appreciate you so much!

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