Thursday the 19th

Hi Everyone!
I have been too tired to blog by the end of day, so I thought I'd try at the start of my day :-)

I slept pretty good last night. I'm getting more tired now, but that's part of the plan to get me better. In two weeks I should begin to rebuild cells and begin to start feeling better again. I'm counting the days. I'm a little homesick, so I'm hoping the time goes by quickly. I miss Jim, Megan and Julia tremendously and look forward to lots of hugs. I also miss Zeek and Rusty too! I'm looking forward to be able to spend a lot more time with everyone.

Over the last few days I've had a lot of wonderful visitors. Thank you for your gifts and cards and prayers. You have all truly blessed me with the support and concern you have showed me and my family.

I have found that we have the worlds crappiest health benefits system. Here I am fighting to stay alive and having to make sure I don't lose my benefits or job in the process. Everything is "time is of the essence" or possible cancellation or bill collectors, and there's no allowance for making things easy. Lot's of paper pushing bureaucratic stuff. Ugghhh. If I make it through this, I will certainly want to address the process for those who are sick in a hospital or under treatment. They should be allowed to focus on getting better not worry about so many other things. Thankfully God has provided me family and friends who will take over some of those concerns for me, but what about the person who doesn't have family or a supportive church like me?

My appetite has severely decreased. I had to pray through my breakfast yesterday. I mentioned it to a few of my visitors. You must be praying, because I did better the rest of the day and this morning. Still no nausea. They say I'm responding to the Chemo very well. Tomorrow is day 7. I will have my last chemo for this round tomorrow. We will wait another 7 days to see what rebuilds. Then we will do another bone marrow biopsy and take it from there. My prayer is that its clean and I can come home by early-mid July. I will come back again for another round a few weeks later, but as long as I don't have any fevers, I can go home after the week of chemo and recover there, rather than stay 30 days. Let's be praying for that! Next steps from that point will vary depending on the cytogenics study results of my bone marrow. Please pray that I'm on the side of best odds for the Leukemia not returning. That path is much easier :-)

I love reading your comments! What an encouragement and blessing it has been to me. Thank you to everyone who has left one. I love You all!! Thank you also to all of the visitors I've had. Going forward, please call first to see if I'm up for visitors. The next couple of weeks will be more challenging and I need lots of rest:-)

Thank you Jeff, for your music. It has ministered to my soul. I look forward to what God is going to teach me and how well I will know him as I enter the heart of the "Valley of the Shadow of Death" He will comfort and protect me. I will know His voice like never before! Psalm 23; I knew the song we were working on wasn't finished:-) Your song "Take me Lower" was not what I wanted to hear yesterday, but it kept coming up on my phone. LOL. But, I desire more of God and less of me in a physical and spiritual way. He is preparing me for something beautiful.

Love,
~Edie