March 18th, 2014

Tonight I am feeling so grateful. We have so many good, kind, generous people around us. Eric, Elena, and Lily are with me and they are awesome. We have survived through the last little while of our life! We've even made some pretty good memories and shared some fun times along the way. The Lord is so good to us and we have the fullness of His Gospel in our lives. We are just blessed.

Today was the 4th anniversary of Elena's diagnosis with leukemia. It was a good day. Some parts heavy and reflective. But mostly busy and good and lots of feeling amazed and thankful as we thought back on what we've come through.

We held our 4th annual blood drive today - more to come on that later. As we were quieting down for the night, we took some time sitting with Elena and talking about cancer, things she remembers, the significance of today, etc. It is so interesting now that she is older and can articulate her thoughts and feelings and memories. I was telling her how proud I was of her and how strong I thought she was and asked her if she wanted to see pictures of herself on March 18th from the last few years, so she could see how far she's come and how strong she is. She very emphatically replied "no". Eric was reminiscing with Elena about various things from her diagnosis and treatment. Elena brought up a memory of one night when we were inpatient and she woke up and started messing with the blue part of the tubing between her port and the IV pole and unhooked it and the negative pressure started drawing blood out of her port. She woke us up and was covered in blood, blood all over the bed, etc. And we were freaking out for a little bit until we figured out what had happened. We had forgotten about that - I don't think we've ever talked about it since it happened years ago. It was so interesting that she brought it up. 

Eric asked her what the scariest part of all her cancer was and first asked, "Was it getting all the pokies?" 

She said: "No! When I had to go to sleep [anesthesia] at the hospital, when I was going to sleep, the doctor's face looked normal but his hat and his arms and all his body looked like a scary metal skeleton body. It was really scary!" 

We had no idea! But she always freaked. out. with any anesthesia. Poor thing. 

Also, she told us that she hates going to the hospital now because right when you walk in it smells exactly like it did when she had to get chemo and she doesn't like the smell. She has a lot of anxiety and starts acting up when we have to go to the hospital. So, that was an interesting revelation. 

Elena vacillated back and forth between seeming like it felt nice to talk about it to seeming really uncomfortable and asking to talk about birds or something else. Cancer is still a pretty emotional issue for her at times. Sometimes, she is pretty excited and light hearted about it, "I'm so strong! I beat my cancer!". And other times, she doesn't want to think or talk or hear about it and gets scared. Sometimes it's easy for us to breeze through life with her - she is doing SO well. We worry about things at school, get frustrated by some behavior, take pride in a new accomplishment of hers, etc., but cancer and all she has been through are sometimes very far from our minds. Which is amazing in and of itself. But on days like today, it is interesting to spend some time slowing down and pondering those experiences. We went through some crazy hard things. To the casual observer, Elena looks like any other six year old. But she has been through an insane amount of... total crap, to be perfectly honest. She is amazing. I need to remember that more. I am so proud of her. She is an exceptional little lady. 

There were some sobering moments as we talked with her tonight, but the overwhelming feeling I was left with at the end of the day was gratitude. I don't know if it's because of 

1. the passage of another year or 

2. the fact that so many more hard things have happened since cancer to fill my heart and emotions or 

3. because of answered prayers for our strength and comfort or 

4. because we held our blood drive today and stayed busy or 

5. because of how well Elena's doing 

or a combination of all five, but I didn't feel the usual knock-my-socks-off wall of sadness and anxiety hit me this March 18th. Instead I felt peace and quiet inside. I felt more acceptance. Cancer crazy stinkiness - that all happened. A lot of it was pretty awful. The learning and growing experience as a whole was pretty neat. We made it. We're going to keep making it. And I'm working hard to really turn my life and my will over to the Lord- to accept that He has a plan for my life that is wonderful. I can sit back and trust Him and seek to do His will every moment of every day because He's got this.