Grateful, again

I know I have spent various blog posts singing my gratefulness for all of the kind gifts we have received. But I must continue a little longer. I do not write thank you notes, hopefully people understand that would require days of time and reams of paper, so I must do it here and hope that people are okay with that. But I must say that we are now 9 weeks into this (actually 9 weeks ago exactly on a horrible Wednesday night)and we have received some sort of gift every day. Every day for nine weeks. The mail lady leaves packages on my doorstep nearly every day. If she doesn't, someone might drop something off, or Jerad brings something home from work. A neighbor stops by. I truly cannot believe it. A handful of people are sending cards every 5 or 6 days. (Mary, Shannon, Deb, Linda) Cards to me, to Ally, to Jerad, to Evan, to Carly. People have not forgotten us. The goodness of people uniting for our child...WOW.

I get notes from people that I haven't talked to in YEARS. From my old boss at Iams, David House, who I said goodbye to the week before our Ally was born and haven't heard from since. Well there he is...leaving me a comment on the blog. Ruthann...another old co-worker and a dear dear person...years have gone by and she is right there again. My old swimming teammate, Jodi, what's it been 20 years? Jerad's high school friend Sheri...again we are almost 20 years out! She sends us care packages all the time. Jerad's cousin Terri, who I may have met once or twice in the 15 years I knew Jerad, she is on the blog everyday, sometimes twice! And am I seeing a follower named Dirk out there? Is that the Dirk that I worked with when I lived in the Netherlands one summer? Not sure, but I do have three "hits" from the Netherlands on my map. Leave me a comment if so.

I am soo soo thankful to the army. I certainly don't want to go through this. I would love to wake up from this bad dream any minute now. But can you imagine how horrible it would be to go through it alone? I think lots of people do. And they sit between four walls in a hospital room. Alone. I hope I am never there. I could be someday...and it scares me.

Ally is down again today. She has no energy. She did spend a good deal of time with her buddy Joshua again today (at his house). We just cannot get her to eat. You should have heard me begging her to eat 4 saltines for dinner. Begging. She ate one cracker -10 calories. There is no way she is going to get energy if she doesn't eat. I am thinking we may be looking at her going on some sort of appetite stimulant here soon. We are going to the lab in the morning for more bloodwork. She also told me she would eat chicken and stars soup...a weird choice and again proof that she is more like my sister than me. My sister ate that everyday for lunch growing up. I remember it vividly. But whatever, if you see us walking through Kroger tomorrow with our masks on to keep the germs out (we have not done this yet) it is because we are desperate for some SOUP!

Tomorrow I am meeting with other "leukemia people" at a kick-off event for that Light the Night Walk I mentioned on October 1. I am going to try to get our team started and figure out what all I need to do. I want the army to be huge and I want to make a big impact. Anyone that knows my Dad...well he is a fundraiser and very philanthropic man. He has taught me well and I am going to follow in his footsteps. To try to raise money to battle this horrible disease. To fund more research so that more people do not have to go through this. To bring the cure rate from 80% to 100%. Leukemia research has come a long way because of this organization. If Ally would have been diagnosed with this in the 1960's she would have only lived 2 months! Look how far it has come....but I want it to go further. I will update more after the meeting tomorrow.

For now, how can I thank you all? Picture my arms hugging you right now. A virtual squeeze from Ally's mom. (I think I am always going to be known as Ally's mom and that's ok)