Happy August!

Or is it "Merry August"?? Guess I am not really sure what the appropriate salutation is for ushering in a new month. Regardless, I hope this new month brings you and your family joy.


I am also hoping, patiently (sort of), that we can usher in the new month with a trip home! We talked to the doctor this morning, and he was happy to hear that Levi's fevers had lessened in severity and frequency last night and today. His counts are coming up (although ANC is still 0); his platelets are up in the normal range, his white blood cell counts had a good jump, and his monocytes are going crazy. For those of you out there who have no idea what a monocyte is, don't be alarmed; they are good and signal recovery.



So the doctor is still hopeful that Levi will get to come home this week. He decreased his morphine dose a little more, and will probably take Levi off of more of his antibiotics tomorrow. Levi has been very active this weekend, and seems to be getting some strength back in his legs. He loves to stand on the day bed and watch out the window, and, as you can see in this picture, he likes to maintain a healthy level of mischievousness, which we love to see.

He is getting a little stir crazy in here, but who can blame him. He hasn't left the room in over four weeks now. He points at the door and wants us to open it, and I am pretty sure he even said "outside" yesterday. We are running out of entertainment options for him pretty quickly, so we are really hoping for that week break at home before his second round starts. I have no idea what we'll do once he is walking again. It has been a good weekend with him though, and I am glad I was able to work from here today and stretch my visit out a little.

So, we watch the numbers and wait. It's all about the numbers right now, and we're hoping to see that big goose egg in the ANC category start to rise soon. There are so many calculations and figures that they watch, and I do appreciate their attempts to explain them, but most of it is lost on me. As many of you know, I am not very good with details; too many details tend to stress me out. I get confused pretty quickly, especially when the numbers and figures are flying at me. There are a couple of verses in Proverbs that I really, really appreciate.


Proverbs 3:5-6

5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight

I take encouragement in the fact that it is not up to me to understand all of this. I am just trusting that God is in control of even the smallest details, and He will guide our paths through this.

Love you all,
Michael, Stephanie, Caylee, and little Levi