Finding Grace in the middle of the night

What so many of us relish at this point in our lives sometimes is just a bit of piece and quiet to reflect, meditate, and maybe get through some emails, without interruption (or how about even just being able to go to the bathroom without having your name called 3 times?).   I believe I have mentioned before, that the night of chemo I rarely sleep.   The steroids they give you the day of chemo kind of wire you the night of. So once again, I have been up since midnight.   I could be annoyed, OR I could be thankful that I'm being given a gift of 5 or 6 hours to do things without interruption.    This being said, somehow I manage to get through Saturdays quite well, but do need to get to sleep at a much earlier hour Saturday night.  Another gift of Grace, being able to go to sleep without helping with the bed time chaos that unravels between the hours of  6 & 8 p.m.  

Today was a "heavy" chemo.  I am thankful to my friend Julie who took me (and prayed with me today) and to my neighbor and friend Sue, who brought me home today!   Again my blood counts were great and my CA125 (blood tumor marker) has been base lining (great news) for the last 5 weeks.   I asked if I can skip the last round of chemo as I have been base lining for a while now and she looked at me like I had 3 heads.  A very quick "Absolutely not, you are a healthy young individual who needs to finish her round!"    At least I tried!  

I was talking to a long time friend who still lives in Utah.  As she hasn't seen me through all of this, we were talking about how I look.    It is funny and a joke was made between me and one of my neighbors who is Jewish.   I think it is well understood that the Mediterraneans', Jewish people and possible most Middle Easterners are the hairiest people on the planet.   I told my friends even chemotherapy can't get rid of the hair on my arms, my eyelashes (of yet) and the uni brow that I have had since I was 12!!!!   They are holding strong!   The hair I have on my head is also still growing slowly.   I will have to take a picture of (baldy) me and post it for those of you far away.  

I don't feel I can talk about what unraveled last Friday at Sandy Hook.    I get such a pit in my stomach.  I have only deep appreciation and gratitude to the first responders on the scene.   I also am incredibly grateful to the attentive changes that are being made to our school AND to all the parents who have been manning the front doors at our school this week as a first line of protection to only allowing known visitors in.

I'll close with this beautiful video that my sister found.  She is a dog lover like many of the people on this blog listing:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA8VJh0UJtg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Merry Christmas to all of you celebrating.   I feel so incredibly grateful for the gift of His birth which has carried me through this whole process.

Enjoy your vacation whether you are going away for the break or staying home.

Much love and warm wishes to you all!

Love,
Renee