"nice teeth"

After a weekend of trying to "calm down!" my lower GI system a bit (thank you corticosteroids), and then just having a good cleansing cry last night with Scott after watching "The Midwives", I am better today.

(It was just a sad show, and opened the door for what "Dr. Scott" said I had been needing to do for a while...)

Last week was ugly, but unlike the previous two treatments, this time going into days 7 - 14 after the first seven days of reeling from the chemo - I have so far - Praise God, give a shout - avoided germs and infection - making this, *day 11* a good day relatively speaking.

God bless Scott for lathering on the hand sanitizer coming home from work each day.

I am still tiptoeing, but I can finally, slowly climb a flight of stairs today and not have to lay down for thirteen minutes, so it appears my red blood cells are still making an effort even after all the hurtful things I said about them last week.

Mostly, I think God Most High has heard my cry, heard the prayers of friends, and I thank you.  I don't like to post weak things like the last post, but on the other hand, that is cancer and more than anything I hate pretense.  So, sometimes, you get it all.  But I appreciate the notes and encouragement - it meant a lot.  I have never felt that weak - that close to not being able to get out of bed.  That close to pushing my heart too hard just by going up a flight of stairs.  That close to being cell-energy-negative.

The cacophony of drugs and drug reactions and feeling raw and weak and sick and low blood cells makes for a perfect storm of depression.  I never realized this deeply how closely tied the bone marrow and cells recovery and weakness and emotional all tie together.

Thank you for praying for my low-reactive-bone-marrow as well.  

You all rock.  Thank you for caring and prayers.  God is good.  He is good in the bad, and He is good in the better.  But today I am giving ear to being open to feeling better, open to feeling God work.

***

God has so blessed me.  Even though I am walking a journey many think horrid - including my body this past week - I find others walking something much worse.  That, in some strange way, always strengthens me.  There are those that are much braver, facing much worse circumstances, and they are going on.  They are continuing to walk their journey.

Last week on Thursday when I finally worked up the finger strength to start scrolling through my phone I happened upon documentaries on the drug cartels in Mexico.  Right across our border is a world that none of us would ever intentionally enter and ever desire for our growing children.  There are few choices in Mexico - your kids grow up and go into the drug cartel, or they try to escape - but either way they have a good chance of not seeing their 30th birthdays.

I would not want to be a mother in that horrible situation and was so thankful for our choice our children have here in this land that I live.  You can argue poverty, etc, I know all that, but we are not governed by terror and fear and kidnappings and murders daily in our midst.  If my husband goes out the door to work, I don't have to worry that he might be one of the those kidnapped and abused until someone can send a ransom or find him.

It's a different world.

I read a documentary on the rape houses that are being used in the middle east to subdue and humiliate a population.  It is horror to the extreme, and yet these people are facing this daily.

There is much worse out there.

I'm not minimizing what I am going through, but it strengthens me somehow to know that there are others facing much worse, and they are still fighting somehow.  Still struggling and journeying.  Evil can stand in the path in many different forms - many different measures.

Much to pray over.

***

Chloe stayed with me Monday evening while her daddy and Popop and sister went to Home Depot.  She was quite a good little nurse.  She would come into my bedroom and lean on my bed and smile and ask me if I needed anything.  Then she told me she was going to clean the baby room, and seeing as you can barely walk through it right now mostly because there was a "grand" playtime in there recently by her and her sister, it seemed like a good idea to her and to me.  She proceeded to line the books all up on one shelf from biggest to smallest.

She came back to my room to give me updates.  She found the book we had been searching for - Dumbo!  She brought it in and practically read it to me.  She patted my arm and told me that she loved me.  I told her she was the sweetest girl I knew at that moment and she smiled.

She kept talking to me, saying things to make me "feel better".  We talked about the Lodi Library days, and going to McDonald's afterwards.   We talked about all the times I rocked her when she was a baby.  We talked about all the times I rocked Millie when she was a baby.

She didn't say anything for a bit, then smiled at me again and said "Grandmum, I love you".  Then she added "you have nice teeth".

I'm not sure why, I'm not sure if it was all she could come up with at the moment with my current circumstances - I mean there's not a lot to choose from - she can't say "nice hair", "nice makeup", "nice hat", but she smiled and patted my arm again.

Then she finished up the books, and stepped over everything else in the room to proudly proclaim her accomplishment of "cleaning the baby-room books".

I'm a little like Chloe today.  I'm looking over everything that should be ordered in my life and picked up and made to look better, but, hey, the book shelf looks darned good and I'm pretty glad to just be up and about.

If my teeth are my best feature some days, heaven help me, but that's kind of how it is today - you just pick what you can and go with it.  And smile then.