Home again...

Let me paint a picture for you…

The house has been transformed. The remnants of breakfast strewn around the kitchen table resemble a junior high science experiment gone awry. The metallic mound of Hot Wheels in the middle of the living room floor would put any L.A. foggy-morning interstate pileup to shame. The handful of dirty dishes that populated the sink at this time yesterday has somehow multiplied exponentially overnight. And the fingerprint smudges on the bottom third of our television screen makes it feel like I’m watching ESPN through a stranger’s bifocals.

All of these signs point to only one thing… He’s back!!



Yup – you guessed it, Levi is home. Earlier this week, the doctor had hinted around that we may be able to bring Levi home sometime this week, as long as his counts were going up. As of yesterday morning, his ANC was still a fat goose egg, but his other counts were on the rise and were trending up enough that we got the green light to move Levi out of his apartment. I dropped Caylee off at daycare yesterday morning, then rocketed down to Indianapolis in a blue Honda minivan flash. Steph had most of his stuff already packed, so the moving out process was pretty easy. I was able to steer clear of most of the “wow – you have enough stuff?” comments, and besides the random guy in the elevator who kept touching Steph’s memory foam mattress pad in amazement (which he fondly referred to as “space foam”), the morning went pretty smoothly.

After a brief stop at Chick-Fil-A, the Harley-Davidson dealer, and the quilt shop to break up the trip, all of which are conveniently located along the way home, we arrived sometime mid-afternoon. Levi hit the ground running, running room to room exploring. He downed a couple mini-packages of Halloween Skittles from Caylee’s candy stash, planted himself in his bedroom for a while to cook on his little play grill, and chased the cat for good measure. Caylee came home about an hour later, and the two of them immediately started fighting over the John Deere ride-on tractor. What a great feeling to have them together again.


Last night he was acting a little grumpy, but we think it was because he was so exhausted. The past few nights in the hospital hadn’t afforded him much quality sleep, so we put him in bed around 7:30. He only woke up a couple of times for a few minutes each and slept almost 13 hours. The solid sleep must have done the trick, as he was bright-eyed this morning and ready to play hard. We all enjoyed our hectic morning together, but the house is quiet now; Steph headed down to Indianapolis for my little sister’s bachelorette party/shopping trip/overnight thing and took Caylee to her mom and dad’s house to spend the night, as I haven’t been feeling very well lately and wasn’t sure if I could handle both the little ones without some backup. Levi is down for his late-morning nap, and I am trying to decide which mess I am going to tackle first before my college football marathon commences.

I also wanted to let you know that the doctor has said that as long as Levi stays healthy over the next week, he doesn’t see why Levi couldn’t attend my sister’s wedding next weekend. As you know from my last post, this was something I was dearly hoping and praying for, and God once again has answered our prayers! We are very excited that he’ll be able to tag along, and Hannah was even able to find him a little tuxedo at the last minute so he could fill the ringbearer role with his cousin like we had originally planned. I am very thankful that God’s timing is perfect, and moments like this make me sit back and wonder why I ever try to drive things to my own timetable when I know things are out of my control yet under the control of the One in whom we trust. So thank you all for your prayers for this special request.

Please continue to lift little Levi up in your prayers; with his counts still low, he needs to stay away from fevers and sicknesses while here at home. He needs this time to rest in his own bed, eat normal food, and relax with his family. Please also pray for the plan going forward; the doctors are examining some options that we may have for the rest of his course of treatment since he’s doing well. I don’t feel like I should share them just yet, as things are very much up in the air, but just pray for wisdom and discernment for those examining his case and that Levi’s recovery from this last round will be swift and his tests will continue to come back clean.

We love you all, and couldn’t do this without you. Thank you for role you’re playing in Levi’s battle.

Michael, Stephanie, Caylee, and little Levi