And the Gold Medal goes to……Leesa!!!

I did not wake up one time last night.  I rose from consciousness of my own accord at 7:22 am.  I actually had to look at the clock three times to see if I had read it correctly.  That’s right, I slept 8 straight hours!  I literally could hardly believe it and it made want to go hug Leesa our nurse who managed to be the ultimate stealth Ninja.  Her strategy was to give Allistaire a sippy cup of milk while she was drawing labs at 4am.  I actually smiled my way out of the Unit to the shower this morning.

And as if this were not enough – Allistaire’s ANC went up to 46, after having dropped to zero again yesterday. Yeah Yeah Yeah!  And (yes, there will be a lot of “and”s in this post) Allistaire’s platelets are up to 176!!!!  To put that in perspective, she gets a transfusion of platelets when she drops to 10 which she has done several times in the last month.  To reach 176 feels like soaring into the blue black of space after living so long in a deep ravine.

AND it’s Sten’s birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I wanted to type out 31 exclamation points in joyful celebration of his 31 years.  The other day I was bemoaning the fact that I have no present for him and no fancy fun plans to celebrate his birthday.  His response was that, well, this is our reality right now and we don’t need to and can’t really make celebrating a priority.  In the moment I agreed, but then at some point as I was attempting to drift off to sleep last night I thought, NO, you know what, we are going to make birthdays an even bigger celebration in our lives because it IS a BIG DEAL that we have been given a whole additional year of LIFE!  That is absolutely worth celebrating and making a big deal out of.  So’s here’s where I wish I could say we have awesome plans tonight.  We don’t and that’ll be okay.  We’ll figure out how and when to do that in the next few weeks.  But still, give thanks for the day!  One more day to live life.  I sure feel redundant but I just know that this is part of the refining God wants to do in me – to jar me into realizing that there is SO much to be thankful for.  This morning as I was getting ready and doing my hair after my shower I noticed that after only 2 weeks of having my hair colored there was already the hint of grow-out.  My first response was to be bummed and frustrated but then I thought, THANK GOD I HAVE HAIR THAT GROWS!  Why am I using so many caps – I just feel like I have to find a way, I so want to learn how to look for the beauty, the wonder, the joy, the good, the true, the abundance that is constantly available to me but I can so easily disregard.  And right now, I am so thankful for my sweet, kind, handsome, smarty-pants, hard working, nature-loving, thoughtful, fun loving, strong, ample provider husband – Sten Karl and all 31 years the Lord has blessed him with!

I have to go because the nurse just called to say Allistaire is up from her nap.  Just one more thing.  Please continue to pray for Solveig who had a fever again this morning.  Thankfully she slept well but her temperature was 100.5.  This means I have to postpone my trip to visit her again.  We’re hoping I can go next Wednesday night through Sunday afternoon.