Prayer Report: Lord's Day 21

Andrew was released from the hospital on Day 30 of Bone Marrow Transplant this past Friday. He still hasn't made it all the way home to his own home and bedroom but he is free from all the IVs and machines. He is free to walk around as he pleases and can sleep in peace. He spent 40 days and 39 nights in the hospital after 11 days of trips to the hospital for radiation treatments. This all began the first week of April when his relapsed was confirmed. His treatment began immediately and eventually led to another initial stage of intensive chemo therapy treatment to get his raging T-Cell Leukemia back into remission. He is now beginning in earnest his new life. He is far from finished with his journey. His new bone marrow has ingrafted and is producing but his new immune system is a long ways from adjusted or developed. He is very weak and fatigued. He is still at risk for complications and relapse. These are the realities. They aren't just "possibilities" but are daily risks that will require multiple trips every week to the cancer clinic in order to aggressively monitor his recovery and growth. However, his Leukemia treatment is over! No more Chemo! No more radiation! No more regularly scheduled procedures and spinal tap treatments! He is no longer being "treated" for Leukemia. He is doing great for this stage of the process. We praise God for this moment. What does this mean? He has transitioned from a 12 to 24 hour cycle of waiting and watching to see if a critical or life threatening complication is going to arise to now watching daily and weekly to see if the short term success will last another 70 days or so. He fought through the treatment and the first 30 days of transplant and he is still alive. Success at this stage was far from a given. We celebrate this moment!

The old adage "you don't know what you don't know"  most certainly applies to Andrew's battle with a bone marrow transplant. We can't really explain it properly and it is impossible for those on the outside to even imagine how hard it is on the patient as well as the family. I'm not sure how any of the families survive this trial. I'm not convinced at this point that we have actually survived. The only thing certain at this point is that Leukemia changes everything and not one aspect of your life is left untouched or unchanged. The experience is almost always the opposite of what you expect. The immediate days after leaving the hospital are often the worse days emotionally and the most stressful. In the hospital is hard physically but it is at least a lot less stressful that life in the real world. You expect it to be a time of great celebration but in reality it is a time emotionally crashing. We call it Post Traumatic Hospital Stay Syndrome. Yet, through it all we find the reality of God's matchless grace always being sufficient. The smiles and joys are genuine and they are so special precisely because the dark hours are so real and beyond description.  Life doesn't stop and God provides the strength and perseverance to press on without you even realizing you are being strengthened. You press on in repentance and devotion. You cry out for renewal and He provides according to His promise and His steadfast love. All the while you are learning by experience all that God teaches us in His word.