Day 48, June 26

A very relaxing weekend.  Ryan and Sophia went for walks on a nature path, rented a video from Red Box, and did normal things like laundry and dishes.

Ryan's WBC counts were pretty low on Friday - WBC of 700 (normal 6,000 -10,000), with 80% lymphocytes (the bad guys, in Ryan's case).  Normally it's about 75% PMNs (not cancerous in Ryan's case) and 20% lymphocytes, and 5% other (WBCs involved in allergic responses, etc).  So he is quite susceptible to infection.  Dr. Zackon started him on prophylactic antibiotics, and he's avoiding crowds.  Although we went to all 3 hours of church meetings today, we had the sacrament at home with Ryan.

We are so proud of Sophia - she's doing an awesome job at work, enjoys her co-workers, and looks like a million bucks when she heads off to work each day.  Knowing she is in a reliable car is a relief to all of us, and it's a car Ryan can be in without risk of exposure to fungal infection.

When everybody asks if I'm OK, I have truthfully answered "yes", because I'm really not losing sleep or living in fear of losing Ryan.  I have been sleeping surprisingly well, considering I'm prone to insomnia and often have trouble sleeping because of pain in my hands.  But I'm learning you can only push stress away so long.  I laid down for a few minutes after lunch today and woke up three hours later.  Tim has developed dishydrosis in his hands - a stress-related condition he hasn't had for years, and never this bad.

Last night we had a Family Home Evening about the challenges we face as a family - Ryan's illness, Sophia's homesickness, Tim's health challenges, MeiLin's loss of her own room, etc.  We showed a 3 minute on-line video (lds.org, search: "Come what may and love it"), and talked about how we can choose our attitude about adversity, stress, frustrations, and changes.  People took turns adding family goals to the white board and we ended up with Respect, Humor, Kindness, Benefit of the Doubt, and Forgiveness.  Then in big letters, MeiLin wrote, "Come What May and (HEART) IT!!"

As with all adversity, there is something we need to learn from this.  None of us would ever have picked this lesson, but we are learning much about ourselves and about our Heavenly Father's love for us.  And about the kind hearts and generous spirits of so many people from all aspects of our lives and all faiths. 

Prayers are so often answered through other people:  "Love one another....".  Thanks for the outpouring of love.
---Barb