An Unscheduled Trip Back To Riley

Since Daniel's spinal tap on Friday, his pulse has been unusually high.  I've been watching it and was beginning to become concerned when it hit 140-145 a couple nights ago.  But last night and today it seemed better so we didn't do anything about it.  However, tonight, it hit 160 so I called the on-call oncologist from Riley and talked to her about what was going on.  She thought we'd be OK for tonight, but asked that I bring him in tomorrow morning to have his blood counts checked.  Since Andrea already has two other doctor appointments for herself tomorrow, I'll have to take off work again.  After having done so today for Daniel's Rheumatology visit, working late nights to make up the time is getting a little tiring.  But we do what we must.

Daniel is not at ALL happy about it though. Despite the fact that it's all done through his port and nearly painless, he's just really becoming overwhelmed with it all and dreads another trip to the docs & the hospital - especially back-to-back with today's visit. Here, he THOUGHT he was getting 10 days off and he's ending up spending more time there than usual.  He burst into tears this evening and exclaimed that "it's just too much".  He's right.  No 10 year old should have to go through this. 

But it did give me a chance to share something the Lord gave to me yesterday.  I was contemplating Romans 8:28 (as I seem to do frequently these days) ...

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." - Romans 8:28 

Probably familiar to most folks - certainly a good one to commit to memory!  But what the Lord drew my attention to yesterday was the 5th word, "all".  You see Daniel's specific type of Leukemia is called "Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia", abbreviated "A.L.L." 

So now my own PERSONAL rendition of Romans 8:28 reads, "And we know that A.L.L. things work together for good..." 

As always, prayers for Daniel appreciated, especially for whatever is causing the high pulse rate and his psychological ability to cope with all that's coming his way right now. ... in a word: Peace.