Our NEW life

My world is asleep...except for me.  Our world is evolving, changing.  We love it!  Oh how we LOVE it!!!  We no longer spend all of our time as a couple discussing medications, cancer and how to prevent drops in counts.  Whether or not we should keep Gracie on the study.   Her last appt was the day before Thanksgiving.  I stayed home with Tyson, I always used to go and now my new role is to stay home or go out and shop and explore one on one with Tyson.  I almost always had an overwhelming desire or need to be at her appts.  Now I don't and Daddy does and can make it, besides she wants him there.  And after so many appts it's wonderful that it has almost become like a daddy/daughter date.  He even let her stay and play with Miss Jen for an hour last time after!  I love that she loves it so much...she does well with the blood draw so Dad tells me I haven't ever been back for the arm draw and I'm ok with it.  I was there for many hard things and I would be there again if I was needed in a heartbeat and I would endure every heartwrenching moment for her.  But I thank my Father in Heaven that today I don't have to.  I am so thankful that today our greatest concern is kids that don't listen and a few minor colds.  An 11 day work stretch, a house that never seems to be clean.  Sound familiar to anyone?  My it feels good to worry about normal things.  Just sitting here I realize how much lighter my shoulders feel, how much the tension has dropped in our home and lifestyle.  We are as busy as ever but with much easier things.  It's easier to watch the kids while Todd prepares a lesson for Gospel Doctrine and stay home with the kids with colds than worry incessantly about fever and low counts and wonder how we will manage another hospital stay and if she will get enough chemo if another chemo hold occurs.  The future holds no certainties and of that I am always aware.  My mind is not naïve and even more so my heart is not.  I keep in close contact with other cancer moms.  I watch as their children suffer, I watch as they relapse and endure heart wrenching challenges.  It pains me, and I know there is no guarantee of tomorrow.  But there is today!  And I will rejoice in it!!  God has given us THIS day!  And THIS day we are blessed so very blessed.  It has been almost 5 months since Gracie took her last dose of chemo and many changes have happened since then.  We now get to go to the library for story time.  We get to go to church as a family most weeks, Gracie is going to primary and loves it!  I can't say the same for Tyson in nursery haha but we are surviving:) And im grateful his health permits him to even though he is terrified and one of us ends up in there every week.  He is a stubborn boy...he comes by it naturally what can we say!  We no longer plan our entire evening around chemo!!! We can eat what we want, when we want!  A true luxury even I forget about on occasion as it has become our new normal.  It's almost mind boggling when I realize she no longer takes any medication at all I couldn't believe it when I filled out a medical history last week...not a single medication!!  Her port is gone and a fever is just that...a fever just like any other child.  She is of course still more susceptible and her body is still working back up its immunity and she hasn't been vaccinated since she was 1 but I think around January she may turn into a pin cushion as we get her caught up.  Life will never return to the way it was before cancer, and in many ways that is good.  But we are evolving as a family, as a couple and as individuals.  We are being shaped by the Masters hand.  We have learned much from our experiences the last few years and no longer take for granted to much of what we once did.  I wouldn't wish many of the experiences upon anyone but now that I've learned what I have I wouldn't give it back either.  I hope I can use it in a positive way instead of dwelling on the bad.  This Thanksgiving we are grateful for our NEW life, and our hope for the future.  For dreams and goals and the ability to work towards them as a family of 4!!  We are grateful for good health!!  Grateful for wonderful families and friends who helped us through and even strangers!  And grateful as we look to forward to Christmas for the Savior of us all.  And a loving Father, who teaches and tutors us so that we may become like Him and return to live with Him someday.   A most humbling and beautiful truth!!  Happy Thanksgiving and here's to a wonderful December and Christmas season!!