Thirty Days of Thankfulness for my Wife

For the past few years, many have undertaken, during the month of November, to post something new each day on Facebook for which they are thankful in the spirit of Thanksgiving later in the month.  This year, I want to post 30 things for which I am thankful in regard to one particular person around whom a great deal of my life revolves ... my wife, Andrea.

There are in fact far more than only 30 thing about my wonderful wife for which to be thankful, but I thought I'd pick the top 10 in 3 categories: Inside (her inward beauty), Actions (how that inner beauty expresses itself), and Outside (her outward beauty).  Other than the categories, they're in no particular order.

Inside:
1. Humor - This is one of the greatest things about Andrea.  She is fun, funny, and loves to laugh and joke.  From what I can tell, she always has.  Her relationships with her best friends is largely based on humor and fun.  Though health problems have dimmed the humor in our lives of late, it's always there ready for a good belly laugh or a quick jab or a practical joke.

2. Intelligence - Her intelligence is one of the first things that attracted me to her.  Well maybe not the very first, but it was up there.  Though I too often make fun of her for not getting all my jokes, she has always been amazingly bright.

3. Faith - From our very first "kinda-date" with a group from church, we hit it off with a common faith and a deep reverence for our Lord and His reign in our lives.  That faith has pulled us through innumerable storms over the past 24 years and through it all, she has remained steadfast, dedicated, and always growing in her faith in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ

4. Wisdom - She has often been the voice of wisdom into my life and for our family.  Though she does not often speak up or against my course of action or decisions, when she does, it is almost always to bring needed balance, direction, and counsel ... in a word, wisdom.  I've watched her grow immensely in wisdom over the years and I hope she will find ways to share more of it with our younger female friends in the days and years to come.

5. Duty - Though she would quickly disagree if I said she had lots of self-discipline, I think the better word for what I see is a sense of duty.  Whether to family, friends, former employers, or simply to what she knows is right, she is always willing to DO what needs to be done - almost regardless of personal cost or pain.  She will likely be surprised to hear me say this, but she is one of the most inwardly strong persons I know. 

6. Honor - Where she gets this from, I don't actually know. :-)  But she has a strong and courageous sense of honor that always wins out over personal inconvenience, fear, pain, or the danger of damaged relationships.  She acts with integrity.

7. Devotion - Whether to God, me, Daniel, family and friends, country, employer, or others, she is a devoted woman to those whom she loves and serves ... often at great personal sacrifice and/or without thanks or repayment.  Once she has committed herself to you, her devotion is fierce.

8. Righteousness - Her moral compass is true and strong, powerfully indicating right and wrong.  Though I've watched her grow over the years in her understanding, or perhaps "application" would be more descript, she is powerfully dedicated to her sense of whatever is right and good and holy and just in whatever situation she finds herself.

9. Gregariousness - In this regard, she is often enigmatic, even paradoxical at times, but I discovered early-on in our marriage that, under the shyness and sometimes difficulty with which she makes friends, Andrea THRIVES on being around people - especially those closest to her, but almost any party will do in a pinch. haha.  While my own social tendencies come and go (mostly going as I grow older), she would almost always be "out" with a group of friends having fun, fellowshipping, or even studying or working ... as long as it's with those she loves.


10. Humility - Make no mistake, there's a temper under there and plenty of stubbornness to go with it.  But in the end, she has learned, continues to grow in, and frequently exercises amazing humility.  As she has further sensed and grown in God's calling upon her life, this has become all the more obvious and expressed in her life ... before God, before her husband, and before others.

Actions:
There are 1001 things that she does through the day, the week, and the years.  These may seem mundane, trivial, and ordinary, but they are the "little things" that make our family work - they are representative of the 1001 things that NEED to happen to keep our family and our lives moving.  And though they may seem small, I know they only seem so because they get done.  When they don't get done, they become very burdensome for me.  Thus, to me, each one is very important and her steadfastness and trustworthiness in getting them done is worthy of my great praise.

11. Homeschooling - While I help with overall direction and a few of the individual subjects, Andrea is the gearworks that makes this happen. She oversees the curriculum, the record keeping, and the day-to-day execution and administration of the Miller Academy of Excellence, and has done so faithfully for 6 years and counting.

12. Cooking - She has become an excellent cook and strives hard to keep things interesting, nutritious, well-stocked and readily available for our family

13. Dishes - Over the years, I've offered multiple times to install a dishwasher, but each time she has refused.  Mostly, this is due to lack of space, but ultimately, it's her willingness and faithfulness to get this job done without complaint that is one of those things that keeps our family going.

14. Shopping - Andrea faithfully keeps our refrigerators and pantry well-stocked, strictly budgets, and is ever mindful of the best deals and, increasingly, of the most healthy options for food as well as clothing and other household items.  While do a significant amount of this for household goods as well, she remains the primary shopper and almost exclusively so for our family's food.

15. Calendar - She largely manages the family calendar.  While I usually do the long-range and "recreational" planning, she's the one who knows "what's going on this weekend", who's birthdays are coming up, and more recently - what's on Daniel's calendar!

16. Banking - As a former assistant manager for several banks, she is good at this.  She knows the system and moves through it with ease.  On those occasions when we've had to change banks or shuffle around how our accounts are managed, she has managed this with ease and wisdom. 

17. Finances - Related to "banking", but different in my eyes, Andrea also manages the daily, monthly, and yearly finances of the household.  For several reasons which include what I wrote under "Banking" as well as various issues in her own family growing up, Andrea is conscientious, punctual, and almost obsessive about getting bills paid on time.  Early in our marriage, this was a rough subject for awhile until we devised a plan to split responsibilities, "personal spending money", and create a general budget plan we could both agree to and follow.  Now, I manage the "big picture" budget planning, and she manages the day-to-day execution.  Since setting this up, it has been a WONDERFUL system playing to both our strengths and (mostly) compensating for our weaknesses.  The time we spent struggling with finances before we worked out this system has taught me to greatly appreciate her abilities and attention to detail in handling the day-to-day execution.

18. Laundry - While I've never had a problem with doing my own laundry, and still help from time-to-time, this is another of those day-to-day activities that she does (mostly) without prompting and keeps our family running smoothly.

19. Medications - By God's grace, this is not something I've had to ever do much management of in my own life - so I'm not that good at it.  But Andrea's health problems over the years, and now with all that Daniel is going through and even our pets, the management of the rather LARGE cabinet of medications, supplements, and other drugs we possess and must take on strict schedules is somewhat staggering in size.  But Andrea has faithfully kept track of these details and managed it consistently and effectively.  By choice, I intentionally stay OUT of this field as I believe having two people involved only invites disaster.  I do my best to stay on top of the "big-picture" and take a VERY active role in general healthcare management and decisions for the family, but again, when it comes to the day-to-day management and execution of who takes what when and how much, Andrea does a fantastic job at it.

20. Cleaning - Unfortunately, both of us seem to have been born missing this gene, and it comes easily to neither of us.  And while I consider myself the "better" cleaner, I'm worse at keeping up with it or even keeping on a schedule despite my best attempts.  In recent years with the various health problems for both Andrea and Daniel, I've taken a far more active role in this than ever before, but it hasn't made it any easier and I'm really no more "regular" at it.  So once again, it is her day-to-day execution of many of these tasks that helps me immensely and is worthy of my grateful appreciation.


Outside:
Sorry folks.  What lies in this category is strictly for Andrea's eyes only.  Suffice it to say, she's a beautiful creature and my physical attraction to her has grown continually over the years.  The details of which are none of your business!  But rest assured, she'll be hearing exactly what I think in the version of this list that she gets.  The rest of you all can just go read Song of Solomon!   :-)

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Happy Thanksgiving  everyone.  Grace and peace to all.

- Tim -

A Long Overdue Update

Hi everyone.  This update on Daniel is horrendously overdue, I know.  But at least, in this case, no news is relatively good news.  Things have been largely uneventful for Daniel and his leukemia treatment (PTL!)

First, a HUGE thank you to everyone praying for Daniel, Andrea, and all of us.  You can't imagine how comforting it is to know that others are standing with us on his behalf through all that we've been through.

Daniel remains in the 5th / final stage of his chemotherapy called the "Maintenance" phase which consists of a monthly visit for IV chemo drugs and daily drugs in pill form at home.  If all goes as planned, we'll remain in this stage until spring of 2015.

In general, he's doing well and continuing to improve.  Life has largely gotten back to a sense of "normal", though we can never completely get away from the ever-present knowledge and effects of his cancer.  The things that continue to plague him are:

1. Effects of chemo drugs.  The primary culprit seems to be Vincristine which he gets IV once a month.  It is a particularly nasty drug and has potentially long-term or even permanent side effects.  He experiences pain in his muscles and joints, much like arthritis, which is particularly bad after his treatment each month.  Usually it goes away after a week or two, but seems to be lasting longer recently.  It comes and goes, but occasionally, all 3 of us are acting like we're all 70 years old.  It would be comical if it weren't for the reasons!

2. He still dreads his monthly hospital visits.  They have reduced the number of spinal tap procedures (for which he has to have a general anesthetic - which he HATES) to 1 in every 3 visits.  That's down from 2 in every 3, so that's been really good for him.  But even the ones where he only gets an IV are still traumatic for him - he gets himself all worked up about ANYTHING having to do with doctors, hospitals, or sickness.  I've been working with him on prayer and "taking every thought captive", etc. which has helped and is, I think, getting better.  But video games are still more effective. hahaha.

3. He still takes a handful of pills every evening (not including various vitamins & supplements) as part of his chemotherapy.  They often result in mild to moderate nausea as would be expected. 

4. His osteoporosis (which predated the leukemia) continues to improve.  The last bone density scan showed marked improvement and we continue to anticipate an eventual full recovery.  In the mean time, the fractures in his spine continue to result in fairly frequent backaches & headaches that I believe are the result of muscle tension from the misalignment.  I'm trying to get BOTH of us on an exercise schedule to improve his core strength and help make that alignment better again.  Heaven knows we both need it! haha.  Though his level of activity and strength are returning, he's still got quite a ways to go to get back to "normal" 11-12 year old activity levels and strength.  He's still largely sedentary which I think is partly from lack of energy (from all the above) and partly it's just become habit.  I very much believe that more exercise will improve a lot of this as well as to build self-confidence and help break him (and me!) out of the sedentary habits that have developed over the past few years.  Heading into winter makes this more challenging, but hopefully, we can keep each other motivated!

In general though, we are VERY pleased with his progress.  There have of course been no signs of the leukemia since we initially went into remission a surprising 2 weeks after starting chemo way back in Jan of 2012.  The unfortunate part of that is that there is currently no way to tell whether the cancer is truly gone or not at this point.  It is completely undetectable.  All of the chemo treatment that remains is being done in an attempt to assure that it doesn't return.  "Relapses" are horrible.  The treatment starts over again from the beginning and the cancer itself tends to be much harder to get into remission and more likely to come back.  The thought of a relapse is terrifying - and that's why we spend more than 3 years pumping him full of poisons to make absolutely, positively certain (as possible) that every trace of the cancer is gone.  Unfortunately, since nobody knows what causes it in the first place, it's a complete guessing game as to why, how, when it might come back - or not.

One really good piece of news from the past few months is that he seems to have returned to a normal growth & weight gain curve.  He's once again outgrowing his clothes for which we are abundantly happy!  There are two unfortunate parts about this (other than the normal clothing expenses of course!).  First, the additional weight has bumped him into a higher category for the chemo drugs.  Believe me, the LAST thing I want to see is increasing doses of the chemo/poisons being dumped into his body.  Obviously, we believe it's for the best (or I wouldn't be continuing the course), but that makes it no less difficult to watch it happen - especially when you know he just barely qualifies for the higher doses and already suffers side-effects from the lower doses.



The second aspect of the weight-gain is that it's not all "good" gain.  The fact is, he's becoming slightly overweight!  I haven't computed a BMI yet, but you can definitely see in his face, chin, chest, and waist that much of his weight is not healthy.  This, in a sense, puts him over the weight category line artificially, and adds its own stresses to his system at the same time.  So it underscores the need for exercise, better diet, and less being sedentary in general (for ALL of us!)  Let's hope / pray for a relatively mild winter that will allow more outdoor activities!

Andrea remains about the same.  One really good piece of news recently was that the doctor finally agreed to try reducing her daily dosage of the chemo drug.  As a reminder, Andrea was diagnosed with a slightly different form of Leukemia (C.M.L. as opposed to Daniel's A.L.L.).  Her's, while not cureable without a full (and hugely risky) bone marrow transplant, is treatable with a drug - a single pill, once a day.  And while that in itself is truly miraculous, it is still chemotherapy and comes with all the same (plus some additional) side-effects.  For her, the most troublesome are the horrible lack of energy and the constant muscle and joint pain.  She feels like she's just run a marathon 24/7 and just getting up enough motivation to get out of bed is a major challenge every single day.  So the news that we could reduce the dosage by 25% was a huge blessing.  The jury remains "out" as to whether there's been a noticeable, lasting reduction in side-effects, but there seems to be a least some reduction.  And we'll take anything we can get!

There was a brief discussion about reducing it to 1/2 dose, but the doctor is reluctant to do that - at least not yet.  She even brought up the idea of trying to go off it completely (recall the above details about relapses).  He's very resistant to that idea, but the statistics he quoted really surprised me.  He said that about 40% of people that go off it completely have it return.  That's actually MUCH smaller than I anticipated (I figured it'd be more like 90-95%).  So that's something we remain in prayer about seeking wisdom & direction.

Thanks again everyone for your thoughts & prayers.

- Tim -