A Glimmer of Sunshine During the Storm

Today was a good day. We are home from the hospital. Our little girl was so excited to come home. She was squealing and smiling from ear to ear. I took her upstairs so I could change my clothes and she took me for a little walk down the hall into each of her siblings rooms looking for them. They had been with there grandparents and weren't quite at our house yet. When they came home she was more smiles and more squeals and it definitely was such a boost of positive energy to see her acting more like her normal self. All day today she has had more energy than she has had in the past four days. It seems like when we are given a trial there are times during that trial when we seem to be drowning in the storm, times we can't seem to get enough air and we are being pulled deeper and deeper. It is at those times when our Savior steps in and allows us a chance to breath, a break in the storm or a glimmer of hope, just enough to help keep us a float. We will cherish her sweet smiles we saw today.

My mom and my sister and I just spent the day sanitizing our house. We went from room to room wiping down walls and using either clorox wipes or bleach and water to kill as many germs as possible. I am hoping to not have to do this again any time soon, (other than the toys and books that the kids use on a regular basis). My hope is that I can stop the germs at the door before they come into the house (even though I know it isn't completely possible, but I am willing to try anything for my baby). My handy husband installed a coat rack in the garage just before you come into the house for the kids to keep their backpacks and coats outside. Once the kids come in they know the routine (they take their clothes off, wash and sanitize their hands and then put on a new outfit. Each time they want to play with their baby sister they use the hand sanitizer first. Hopefully we can prevent as many trips to the children's hospital as possible. The nurses and doctors have let us know of the seriousness of trying to prevent infection and viruses in our little girl. If she runs a fever of 100.3 for longer than an hour we will have to call the oncologist and they will give us instructions for what to do (which will likely be a trip back to the hospital) , and if her fever gets to 101 for any amount of time we are to call and they will always admit us to the hospital for antibiotic and fluid treatments for at least 48hours. It is amazing how when you have an interest in learning something you can retain lots of information in a small amount of time. Ask us almost anything about treatment of yolksac tumors and we can probably tell you about it. My husband and I will hopefully have our nursing degrees by the time we are finished with all of this. We were able to practice giving an orange a shot as well as each other. I have to say that the shot was definitely not the most painful part of the whole ordeal, I feel like I have bruises on my arm where my husband pinched up the fatty area of skin to poke the needle in. I didn't pinch him very hard, but I forgot to draw any of the saline up into the needle and almost gave him a shot with only air in it. By the time we were finished practicing all three of us (my husband and I and the nurse) were all laughing really hard. We are happy to say that one block of treatment is down and three more are left to go before we get to check to see how the tumor is responding to the chemotherapy. We know there is still a lot to come, but like I said before we are so grateful for the small things such as our daughters squeals that help to push us along in our journey.