Blessings

I just want to take this time to think about all of the blessings we have been blessed with.  As far as cancers go, we have a pretty great prognosis. There are different factors like age and type that do make a difference. So far Henry’s age is a benefit as well as the type he has. He does have something called the Philidelphia Chromosome which can increase his chances of relapse or decrease the effectiveness of the chemo medicines. A blessing regarding that is Primary Children’s hosptal and their Hemotology/Oncology team are enrolling patients with this chromosome in a study to add another medicine that has been studied and proven to counter those issues. We would not be able to get this med anywhere for our child unless we are part of the study that the hospital is already working with. We feel like Primary Children’s Hemotology/Oncology team is pretty awesome but I think this is the reason both Jeremy and I have felt like we couldn’t go to another qualified place before we even knew about this chromosome.

My sweet Annabelle is my oldest and has intuition beyond her years. She anticipates needs, she prepares better than her momma (who hates to be without something and over packs even for a trip across town to my mom’s) she plans ahead like her daddy, she reads my mind and I don’t have to finish my sentences, she is wonderful to have in a pinch and on our first trip to Henry’s chemo.  She held the puke bag for him to dry heave even though it made her stomach turn. She made it so I could drive and not worry about anything Henry needed. She sat by him most of the time and read my mind when I couldn’t get a coherent thought out. She has been a real trooper and lovingly concerned about her brother. Watching him get his port accessed and getting hooked up to his meds was hard for her but she was tough. She was happy and positive when we were stuck in traffic and even joked and made me laugh. At the end of the day I thanked her for how wonderful she had been and she was sure she had made things harder somehow which was absolutely not the case and I told her so.  This child by no effort of my own is a strong, intelligent, intuitive tiny grown up. I am so blessed to have her.

Today my mom was going to drive us to Salt Lake so she came probably and hour and a half early to help get us on the way. My husband kept wondering aloud why she would come so early and why we would leave so early and I had no answers except better to plan for whatever and have extra time than push it until too late.  Since we would be driving by the school to get out on the highway I planned to drop the kids off at school on the way out. As we pulled out of the driveway my mom realized she had a flat tire. Not on the way to my house but while it was sitting in my driveway it went absolutely flat. I put school kids in my car and planned to come back and just switch to my car when I got back.  My mother in law picked up the baby at my house and my mom called Sam’s Club to see what they could do about her tire. They said come right in and they would fix it fast. So we went in. Blessing #1 The tire went flat in my driveway, close to Sam’s Club, not on the highway going 80mph. Blessing #2 We still had and extra hour that ended up getting used for a new tire. Blessing #3 My mom’s tire was still under warranty.  There was a 16 dollar fee and they waived even that because my mom had told them why it was an emergency to get it fixed quickly. Other blessings; gas was cheaper at Sam’s Club on the way out than it was at the station we originally planned to stop at, the boys got to eat a pretzel and churro for breakfast and grab some yummy snacks for the drive, and we made it only five minutes late to our appointment. I was able to help Henry without having to stop when we needed to put numbing cream on his port or with various other things.