First Post of 2009

Today marks one month since Hannah came to the hospital with symptoms of Aplastic Amemia and today also marks three months since we came home from China with Lily!!! Unbelievable.

Last night Lily came for a visit but she did not make it until midnight. Instead she went home with daddy & slept it up in her crib. Hannah & I stayed up until 4am -- we are true hospital party animals!! Hannah & a sweet little 6 year old boy, Jacob, across the hall had their room doors open & they blew horns at each other at midnight. It was so cute and a New Year's Eve memory that I will always cherish!!!

Hannah has been having some pain from swelling caused by Prednisone & the fluids she receives through her IV. Her day was filled with lots of "Vitamin B & Vitamin M: ...code for Benadryl & Morphine :-)! Hannah received red blood cells today & tomorrow she will get a transfusion of platelets. The medication they were giving her to try to boost her white blood cells, Nupigen (i think that is the medicine .. something like that?), did not work at all so they have cancelled that. Hannah has not been running a fever today but her blood pressure is a bit high (again, another side effect from her medication!??!). All in all, she is such a trooper & doing well despite many, many bad side effects from medication.

She spent a few hours today with Aunt Kim & Katie while Jim & I got out for a bit to spend time with each other and with Lily. We had a nice dinner at one of my favorite places, King's Fish House. The food was great & it was nice to be together but in every way it didn't feel right to be out to dinner with Lily & not have Hannah with us. Something was very wrong!

I am so thankful for the many, many, many people that keep encouraging us & supporting us during this time. Mostly, I can't wait to be looking back on all of this with 2 healthy girls at home but for now I feel completely sustained by the Lord, an army of prayer warriors, loving friends & caring strangers.

Please pray for Hannah tomorrow (Friday) her port will get de-accessed & re-accessed. That means the nurse will remove a 1 1/2" needle that has been inside her port for a week (taped to her chest) and put in a new 1" needle. These needles have to be changed once a week to prevent infection. Just pray for Hannah. Last week's accessing of the port did not go well. Her nurse tomorrow is Jackie -- she is wonderful & has assured Hannah that tomorrow will be a piece of cake with the port.

Pray also that her bone marrow will start to come back "from it's cruise to the Bahamas". We decided it must be on a nice vacation to have already been gone for this long!! :-)

Hannah & I have been having the most amazing conversations since she got sick (most of them started by her!). I can just see that she is really trusting in the Lord with all her heart through this. Yesterday she drew a picture of a little girl reading a book with a thought bubble above her head "God is with you all the time". On the other side of the paper it looks like a voice is coming from heaven (or a tree, depending on your view) & the voice says "Never be afraid." -- God.

Wow, does she get it: NEVER BE AFRAID.