Friday

Hopelessness is a strange bird: It's utterly draining -- physically, emotionally, mentally. So I suppose it's no great wonder that I'm so tired tonight. But after a few bad days, I'm trying to pull up my own bootstraps and emerge from the fog. Not because I don't 'deserve' to wallow a little; I maintain that I do. But because I discovered months and months ago that it doesn't help me at all to be angry and feel sorry for myself. I just forget and re-discover that revelation. Repeatedly.

This morning, I took Isaac and Brady by the preschool to drop off some Valentines for Logan's 'classmates'. I've mentioned it before, but he's been a 'silent' member of the class this school year, though he hasn't -- and won't -- attend a single day. We visited a little with Ms. Kelly, the director. And I have to thank her for helping me to take the first step out of my self-pity pit. She got out of her car, wandered over to mine, smiles like she often does, and said 'you're up! You're out! Despite all of the stuff going on, you're still up and out'. I responded with my usual, garden variety 'well, I don't have much of a choice', but you know what? I appreciated the remark. A lot. I felt validated. And every now and then, I need to feel validated. I need to hear a genuine 'hey, you look like you're doing well' that's not accompanied by pity eyes. Even if I'm absolutely dying on the inside, it's good to know that I don't look it on the outside every second of every day.

Afterward, we headed up to CHO so Adam and I could swap places. And it was a challenging couple of hours. Logan was cranky, sad, whiny. It grieved my heart to see him so upset; to hear him saying -- repeatedly -- that he didn't understand why he had to be there, that he wanted to go home, that he missed his sister and brothers and daddy. He's set to move out of the PICU and into a room on the 5th floor. As of this evening, they were simply waiting for a bed to become available. Prayerfully, that will happen SOON. He doesn't care one bit for the PICU, and I can't really blame him. Very nice staff, but a very noisy, hustly-bustly sort of place, no windows, no privacy.

The neuro team was to round at noon, so when they hadn't shown by one, I had the nurse, David, call to find out their plans. He told me it would be a few more hours as an emergency had arisen and Dr. Sun was in the OR, but not 5 minutes later, Philippa and Traci (Dr. Sun's PA) appeared. We had a good conversation which left me feeling better about everything, though I'm not competely without worry. After all, it's been a rocky, rutted path of late. I let them know that I was unhappy that we hadn't harvested enough stem cells after I'd hounded them about doing so after every single chemo cycle. I also shared my worries over delays.

The plan is for Logan to be discharged from CHO on Monday. He'll then return the following Monday for another MRI, and then a second attempt at the surgery. Dr. Sun will operate via the original incision site, since he still doesn't really understand what happened Tuesday with the new location and doesn't want to risk lightning striking twice. Since I can mis-hear things and tend to be melodramatic at times (shocking, I know), I confirmed with Traci that he'd never had that happen during surgery before, and she verified. I still think that's insane. And I think it was an attack. A flagrant, ugly attack. She also said that he was upset about it; of course he was. I felt badly for him when we found out what happened, and prayed that it wouldn't affect his confidence in the future. I told them that we still have full confidence in him, and they were pleased to hear it.

He's going to be discharged not because he needs a lot of extra time to heal physically, but mentally. Dr. Sun wants Logan to be feeling good on an emotional level as well as a physical one. Of course, it'll also help to have any and all swelling gone, but he needs to go back to CHO with a positive mindset. I confirmed with Traci and Philippa that seven extra days won't make a difference with respect to the tumor.

Post-surgery, which prayerfully will go well and be extremely, extraordinarily successful (get on the game big-time, warrior friends), we'll move on to transplant. I still don't know if we're doing one or two cycles; at this moment, we don't have enough stem cells to do two, but if Dr. Finlay from LA thinks two would be the best course of action, we'll likely go with a stem cell harvest the traditional way: 50 needle pricks in the lower back. It kills me to think of him having to endure that, since my understanding is that it's terribly painful, but Philippa assured me that he could be anesthetized. Sigh. My poor little guy. I've shyed away from agreeing whenever someone has said 'it's just too much!', but I'm beginning to agree: Logan is too good for all of this. Much too sweet, much too good. I'd be furious, if being furious wasn't so completely exhausting. And without point.

So that's where we are: About two weeks behind schedule. It's a scary place to be. Though I'm still smarting over the blows we've been dealt over the past weeks, I still ask that you all pray, and pray aggressively, for Logan's complete healing. I know that you are, and I thank you. Just please keep doing it. I'm sure that your prayers helped to keep him safe -- and truthfully, to save his life -- in the OR on Tuesday. So I also know that they can help keep the tumors stable for an extra 10 days as we await the second operation. Please pray over his upcoming time at home and the surgery that will follow on either the 21st or 22nd. Pray that God will guide Dr. Sun's hands -- as He no doubt did on Tuesday when he was able to stop the bleed quickly -- and that he'll be able to get the entire primary mass. It's hard to ask for big things because I'm terrified of yet more disappointment, but I also believe that you can't really receive what you don't ask for. So there it is.

Thank you for following along, sharing with friends and family, and praying for us. Have an excellent weekend.