party in Granna's room!

Now do you understand why we've limited visitors to family only? Our family fills up the room! Alright, technically two of the couch-sitters aren't family, but they might as well be. There were four more people in this room tonight, including the guest of honor. Jared, Shelby, and the grandkids (those are two of them, Chase and Hunter, on either side of my little sister Tekia) came back into town this weekend to see "Granna." Fortunately, Granna was feeling well enough to get enjoy the kids for a little while yesterday and today. And Tekia talked Mom's ears OFF this afternoon . . . telling her all about her first practice for this year's children's Christmas musical at church. She said Mom seemed like her old self. :-)

After bidding farewell to her beloved pain pump, Mom didn't have a very good night last night, and her morning didn't get off to a very good start either. However, the majority of her day since then has been great! She's walked around "the block" (out of our unit and past three others) a total of 6 times today; that's a new record as she usually just walks 3 - 4 times! She's not using a walker anymore and can usually push her own IV pole. Despite a couple setbacks (I'll get to those), her spirits are good. Earlier she told someone that today's the first day she's been able to envision herself going home.

Now for the setbacks . . . her white blood cell count was back up again today, meaning her infection is not going away with just antibiotics alone. So sometime tomorrow, she will have a drain tube placed to drain the fluid off of her abdomen. It's likely she'll go home with this drain. We hope this will help with her pain and also help her body get back to normal (i.e. swelling!). We don't know a lot about the actual procedure she'll have, but, from what little we've heard, it doesn't sound like something that's incredibly complex or something that takes very long. Mom also ended up back on IV fluids (per her port) this morning.

So keep praying . . . for her infection to disappear completely . . . for the placement of the drain tube to go well and for the drain to help Mom heal . . . for Mom's recovery process . . . for Dr. Behrman and Dr. Tauer and their teams . . . for our family, especially Jamal and Tekia . . . for Mom to remain cancer-free forever . . .  and for God to get all the glory!