May 18, 2009

Sorry I haven't "blogged" in a few days. Too busy again. Anne has been doing fantastic after her chemo this time--no tiredness or nausea. Praise God! She had some lab work done today and everything looked really good. The main thing is the white blood cell count, which was within normal limits for that lab. They'll be checking bloodwork on her weekly to make sure the chemo doesn't do a number on her bone marrow.

We wound up having a pretty busy weekend. Friday night Annete and TJ Dorey stopped by for a nice visit. Anne's parents wound up leaving for home Saturday morning early. After I finished dictating Thursday's office notes, we went to lunch at Tim Horton's (got my favorite Boston Cream donut!). We then went to Nouvel High School where they were holding the American Cancer Society Walk for Life. We spent a wonderful time with the "Orange Blossoms"--Linda's family, and met a bunch of friends that had turned out to raise money for the event. At least when we went it was sunny but it was very windy. It apparently got really cold at night, so they lost a lot of participants, but I'm sure they raised a bunch of money. I won't mention any names, but Mike Pappenfuse looked adorable! Saturday night I got to go grocery shopping and then Anne and I settled in to watch a movie--"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". If you missed it, don't worry, it stunk. I'm still not sure what the purpose of the movie was, but it had to do with a guy who was born as an old man and got younger the longer he lived. Basically it was some sort of love story, or at least there was a bunch of love-making going on once he got started.

Sunday after church and lunch we went to a graduation party (Julie Nease's daughter Laura from nursing school). It was nice to have Anne see all of the folks from Mackinaw that were there. We then went to a business meeting at church and then to the Olsen's house for our Sunday night community group meeting. We had a fun time there--lots of laughs, as well as praying. We didn't get home until almost 9:00 pm, so it was a long day for Anne. Of course, I had to watch the Red Wings game (thank you TiVo) so we didn't get to bed until after 11:00.

Today's verse is from Philippians 4:6-7:

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

As all of you have been praying for us, I thought this was appropriate. God is listening to all of your prayers and giving us the comfort of having Jesus in our corner. We couldn't do this without a strong faith and all of your support. Giving our worries over to God lifts a tremendous burden from us--I feel free to take care of Anne without worrying whether she will be alright--because I know God will take care of her as well. He's doing the worrying for me. My job becomes easier--make sure she gets the best care possible, be there for her (I still need to work on this as work takes me away too much), and just love her as much as possible.

Heather got home from Poland tonight. She had a great trip, and already misses the food. She got us all some neat gifts. I guess you can tell your kids are getting older when they bring you back booze. Looks pretty good to me, though--a cherry-flavored vodka that they apparently drink (and drank) a lot of over there.

I won't be writing Tuesday night--TJ got tickets to game 2 of the Red Wings vs. Chicago and invited me to go. Thankfully Heather will be here to keep Anne company. I'll just have to dictate Tuesday's office notes on Wednesday....

God Bless,
Tony