November 30, 2010 in Uncategorized with 7 Comments

Gray completed his third round of chemo just over a week ago. As you know, this round was inpatient because the chemo was a combination of medicines and stronger then any previous round. We were warned that he may experience more symptoms during this round of chemo then he has in the past and unfortunately he did. Gray acted fine, for the most part, but would throw up from time to time. He would really be acting almost normal and then suddenly he would whine and then throw up. Poor little guy. As you can see, Doug was the target of Gray’s first “throwing up” episode! Besides feeling sad for our little guy it was also a bit overwhelming each time he threw up only because any fluids that come out of Gray during chemo have chemo in them and so are, at some level, poisenous to us. We even have to wear rubber gloves when we change his diapers! Sigh. Gray stayed kind of sick for several days after being released from the hospital but is now doing better. At this point, however, Gray is extremely constipated and isn’t eating well. Please pray that his appetite will return. After coming home from the hospital and after Gray recovered a bit from this round of chemo we enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving with both our families. Everyone came together, each preparing part of our meal and we truly enjoyed each others company. It was a nice time. Yesterday we went back to the clinic at the hospital to have Gray’s white blood cell count levels checked. As usual, Gray LOVED looking out the window at the crane working and building across the street! He’s all boy! When his count results came back they showed that Gray’s levels are still very high! They are sitting right at about 11,000!!!! We know at any moment they will drop and the doctor’s expect them to drop this week but as of now his immune system is holding strong. There truly is never a day that goes by where we don’t think about cancer, talk about cancer and go over Gray’s treatment schedule doing our best to prepare for tomorrow but as we settle in to some form of routine we are finding that memories are still being made. We are still laughing and still smiling. Gray is still our little comedian and makes us laugh nearly everyday! Recently, he found his way into mommy’s closet and played dress-up!! I mean seriously…do they come any cuter then that???? Gray truly continues to teach our family every single day how valuable life is and how important time is. Over thanksgiving those many life lessons were even more at the forefront of our minds. Sure we’ve had some low points recently as well. It’s never easy to watch your baby fight cancer and to put your entire life, your family routine, your friendships and your own needs on hold to be strong for your baby but at the same time we are all learning things through this process that are beyond valuable and that we otherwise would have never learned. We are thankful for so much and blessed with even more! We hope you all enjoyed your own family over Thanksgiving and we hope that you saw the value in the time you spent with them. Life is short. Life is so fragile. Life is precious.

“No one cares more about your life then God. No man, no woman, not even you. That’s why God’s destiny is always the best. God loves you perfectly and he is always thinking about you and thinking about what is best for you. Give God all your worries and all your cares for he is always thinking about you watching everything that concerns you. (1 Peter 5:7) Whatever concerns you, concerns God. Whatever you’re worried about, whatever you’re afraid of, whatever keeps you up at night, whatever gets your attention, gets God’s attention. No one will care more about your life, so why not give him your life to care about? What does it mean that God is mindful of you? I means he’s alert, he’s focused, he’s paying attention. When God is mindful of you, he notices everything in your life. Matthew 10 says not even a sparrow can fall to the ground without God noticing. He even numbers every hair on your head. That’s how close God pays attention to you. That’s why it’s worth going God’s way rather then your way. Accepting God’s destiny for your life is the best plan.” -Rick Warren