Tuesday,

As the days and nights start to blend together (tonight will be our 36th night together here) it becomes a little fuzzy what has and hasn’t been shared in this blog. I (Steve) wished I had the energy and time to go back through and reread the daily blog posts to see what was and wasn’t shared, but for now that seems too daunting of a task to do, so I apologize if you find I’m repeating myself occasionally.

Today was a rather quiet restful day for Bonnie. At this point we are more or less in a holding pattern waiting for the white blood cells to start producing. Our physician has told us that it normally takes between 10 to 20 days after the conclusion of chemo to see the WBC start to produce in the bone marrow. It could be longer for Bonnie due to having two rounds of chemo. We are now on day 15 and still at zero WBC so Bonnie continues to be at “high risk” for infection. The yeast infection is still alive and well, but doesn’t seem to be gaining ground due to the antifungal medicine she is receiving. Once the WBC start to grow and reproduce they will fight the infection. This is the key and continued prayer request at this point. The remnants of the chemo have also caused a rash that is slowly consuming her entire body. Some areas are so intense and dense her skin is almost a maroon color. Other areas has the appearance of chicken pox. Some are raised and some smooth, yet thankfully none of them itch or are uncomfortable. The water sacks on her heels have popped (which is okay), although she needs to keep her feet protected at all times for risk of infection.

We are blessed to be surrounded by a talented team of doctors and nurses, including our lead oncologist/hematologist who came from Cleveland Clinic to Sparrow Hospital to help grow the oncology/hematology department. We are also very fortunate to have Bonnie’s brother who is a lead oncology surgeon at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona providing us personal insight as well as communicating with our team here at Sparrow and with Mayo’s hematology group. So we believe Bonnie is getting the best possible care and treatment, but also recognize that no matter how good these individuals are, only God heals. God gives each of us gifts and we are grateful to Him for the skill and knowledge He has given our team of doctors and nurses. Please pray for Dr. Srkalovich and his team that God will provide wisdom and insight as they continue to care for Bonnie.

In addition to Bonnie’s physical health, here is another way to pray for her. As I (Steve) have attempted to communicate, Bonnie has been very strong emotionally; however the past few days have been a bit of a challenge for her from an anxiety aspect. Surrounded by the four same walls combined with the mundane daily activities of blood draws, diarrhea, doctors staring and analyzing, laying in bed, the beeping of the IV pumps, countless oral medicines, changing of IV bags, hourly vital signs, trying to eat the cold cardboard with jelly (otherwise a toasted English muffin) for breakfast and the tasteless concoction of chicken broth, with diced chicken breast with spaghetti for lunch are beginning to challenge her contentment.

I must admit that it is easy for discontentment to creep in even with me. I think it was yesterday that I mentioned it is so helpful to recall specific sections of God’s word to remind us of His unfailing love, even in times of fatigue, turmoil and despair. I think about the story of Nehemiah in the Bible and Nehemiah’s fatigue, turmoil, and despair he must have endured returning to Jerusalem and seeing the devastation that was brought on by God’s people forsaking God and following other false gods of the day. And now God was calling Nehemiah to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. Nehemiah’s opening line of his prayer to God acknowledging who God is, helps remind me of God’s sovereignty over everything and allows me to regain that inner strength to forge ahead each day knowing it is another day in our case of not rebuilding a wall, but the rebuilding of Bonnie’s bone marrow and blood cells. Nehemiah 9:6:

“You are the LORD, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.”

Even though we are just a blip in the big picture of God’s creation, He knows us because He made each of us and we were made to worship Him, and Him alone in everything we do. So, please pray that as we continue to reside in this hospital room with the ongoing mundane activity and distractions, that our eyes will remain fixed upon worshipping God just as “the host of heaven worships Him”.