Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Please Pray

I landed back into the cold (but sunny!) Ohio about 3pm on Monday. It was good to be back AND I had a wonderful trip. It was nice spending time with my family...my original family of my Dad and my sister. Although the weather was not great (the sun did shine down for about 2 hours on Sunday and I pretty much froze while trying to sit out in it) we just had a really nice time. Shopping, organizing, planning, thinking...trying to make Dad's new place a home for us all to relax in. Oh how I wish I could take my family there, but not yet...we will have to proceed through the remainder of Ally's intense treatment before we can attempt to do that. If prayers are answered, we will all be down there in due time putting our little toes in the ocean. I pray for the day that my girl can wade out into that ocean and find a sand dollar on her own. The ocean is a wonderful place to sit and pray, by the way. Lots of prayers were spilled into the ocean water by me on behalf of our girl Ally and our friend's boy Cory. (who is doing remarkably better by the way).

I arrived home to quite a miracle I must say. There were several welcome home signs/card/ gifts...my husband was making dinner (the only thing he knows how to make: Chili, but still!), my house was totally picked up and they told me they had a surprise for me. Ally led me to the garage where they opened up the door to my car. It was CLEAN. (cue: angels signing) They spent three hours vacuuming, cleaning and scrubbing...my disaster of a car. It was truly a terrible mess and a definite sign that this Mom really does fly by the seat of her pants all the time. So that was just AWESOME. (I think I owe some thanks to Kopil too) Not only did my husband stay with the kids for me, but he did lots of little projects around the house for me and even laundry too! I know! I know! It doesn't get much better than that.

I also owe my sincerest thanks to three people who watched my kids while my husband went to work on Friday and Monday: Suzanne Duplain (thank you also for the dinner you left for Jerad/kids), Lisa Wygant, and Jackie Yount. I could never have gone to Florida without a little help from my friends and someday I hope to repay the favor!

I did come home to the reality that Ally's ANC number was not good enough for her to start the new phase of treatment this week. This is normal and expected, but I always hate delays. She was 390 and had to be 750. So she has the week off, and she is feeling really good. However, I did receive word (thank you Tracy) that the school is pretty darn sick this week...so I am holding Ally home a few days. She has enough to deal with and I know she will catch anything that flys by. We still do tutoring and then she pretty much job shadows me all day, which can get really tiring for me, but what can I do. I do think the girl could pretty much raise a family at age 8...she can cook, clean, do laundry, follow recipes, put away groceries, lay her sister down for a nap, you name it and I have taught her. I guess this is the school of life and I am her teacher.

I have mentioned on here several times my hospital family. And my hospital family is very dear to my heart. Another of our family, Hollie, was mentioning that we are kind of like a military family...we all have to stick together and rely on each other and fight the battles together...whether they are good or bad, we are just together. We have similar heavy hearts and tired faces and prayerful hands. We follow each other's stories every single day, thru the blogs, even if we don't see each other...we are there in spirit. So today my heart is very heavy...as the youngest member of our family, Lincoln, is possibly facing the last moments of his short life. He has seen more trials in his one year of life than most will ever see. He is a sweet baby boy...who we first heard about when the St Luke's moms held a lemonade stand last summer for Ally and Lincoln. We have spent many a day in the hospital right by him with Ally trying to make him giggle from his hospital crib. Today I am praying for a miracle for our baby Lincoln. He deserves a miracle and then some. Please pray.

8 comments:

  1. Janel-
    so I have chills right now. I'm sitting here feeding my 2 month old, Ella, thankful that you had a great time, Jared is fantastic, and hopeful for Ally's counts. But I'm also sad for Lincoln, and can't imagine that pain. I am praying for him and his family to find peace.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thrilled you came to see and enjoy your Dad's beautiful condo on our lovely Longboat Key! How wondeful to read about your loving homecoming too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You've got me in tears again :) Lincoln has my thoughts and prayers today, for him and his family. I've started to feel that I know them too, through you, what a hard day they must be having.
    On the brighter side, I'm so glad that your trip not only went well, but that the return was great! Way to go Jerad!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh so glad that all went well this weekend and that you had FUN! It won't be long before you all will be done there as a family. Jerad is such a blessing! What a great daddy and hubby! I feel so badly for Lincoln's family. Should God choose not to heal Lincoln physically here on earth, we can rest assured that his ultimate healing will be going to be with Jesus. That's probably not a comfort for his family at this point, but I believe it to be true. I will definitely be praying for a miracle! God can do it! Many prayers will be said on behalf of little LIncoln. Love you, girlie. Glad you were able to pray, relax, and rest. XOXOXOXO.

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a great hubby, but then again, you really do deserve a break with all you have been through! that's awesome that you were able to get away! I want you to know Ally is in my thoughts and prayers. She is my hero!
    I finally just sent her a gift, so if you get something from tara pakosta in plainfield IL that's me! I hope she has some fun with it!
    Love, Tara (ally's prayer warrior).

    ReplyDelete
  6. Welcome home, Jammer. Oh, I can't stand it for Lincoln's family. I'm praying as hard as I can.
    Thinking of you,
    Alli

    ReplyDelete
  7. So happy to hear you had a great trip :) Maybe we can meet up at Longboat one day....it's a family hotspot that we haven't been able to get to but are actually talking about being able to make it this summer. We'll see. Sorry about little Lincoln, we will be praying for him in Georgia. Yes, delays stink, but kind of nice because they always seem to feel so well during them. She'll be nice and strong when it's time to hit the clinic again!
    Take care,
    Diona

    ReplyDelete
  8. How is Baby Lincoln doing today? My mind has been on him and his parents. I can't imagine. I'm praying...

    Shelley

    ReplyDelete