One Step Closer To What?

And now, on to the post that I thought I was writing a couple of minutes ago.....unless, of course, God has something else I mind:)

Each day of my sweet girl's treatment for cancer has been marked off of the calendar with gratitude that we survived that day.  That hasn't changed, but over the last month something has changed.  For so long, I have repeated to myself, "We're one step closer.". It's a true statement, but as I have finally begun to see the end of treatment in the not so distant future another question has come.  One step closer to what?  I remember back at the beginning telling people that I just couldn't wrap my brain around 2 1/2 years of treatment.  So we took it one day at a time, one treatment phase at a time.  Now here I sit with only 4 months of treatment left , and I marvel that we have made it to the point that I can see that endpoint at all.  It seemed so far away 2 years ago, but now it's rapidly approaching.

And now the question comes......one step closer to what?  Well, one thing is obvious; one step closer to no more daily chemo.  What most people assume is that that brings with it great excitement and a feeling of conquering the beast we know as cancer.  And there is some of that for sure.  One step closer to being cured.  But the backdrop is what no cancer mom wants to talk about because it is perhaps our biggest fear.......relapse.  Are we one step closer to a cure or one step closer to relapse.......the question, one step closer to what?  The truth is that only time will tell because no one on earth knows the answer to that question.  The truth is that you start this journey with only one thought in mind....cure.  But somewhere along the way your are met with the reality that relapse is a very real possibility.

Now I know what many well meaning people will say at this point.  You must think positive!  Most kids do NOT relapse.  Eighty percent, in fact, never hear the word leukemia again.  I'm a pretty positive person, but I'm also a numbers girl and a realist.  Here's what I would tell you about 80%.......80% means that 1in 5 kids WILL, in fact, relapse.  That doesn't sound quite as good.  I'll also let you know that well less than 1% of kids will ever have cancer in the first place, and I've already been faced with experiencing that 1%.  Which means that facing 20% seems all that more likely to me.

So back to the question that is rattling around my brain.....one step closer to what?  If I'm talking cure or relapse, I honestly don't know the answer.  But this question is way bigger than cancer.  One step closer to.........Jesus or Satan?  Now you might think that is a bit dramatic, but I believe it's always one or the other........harsh but true.  What I've learned is that each steps take has significance here; each choice I make matters.  And then there's the truth that points to peace and makes all the other questions pale in comparison.  THE answer........one step closer to what?........Heaven and the arms of my Savior.  Between here and there will be either cure or relapse, or perhaps both.  But the destination will not change.........each and every step in every one of my days brings me one step closer to Heaven.  Thank you Jesus!

                                                Amy

                                                       Amy

My Excursion

Life is a journey.........most often a journey filled with many ups and downs, twists and turns.  I've begun to think of this life as a trip through this place that is my temporary home.  This trip has many different excursions; you know, those delightful little trips that you take while on a trip to see or experience a little of what the area has to offer.  Some of these excursions last for a day,some for a season, some for years, and others that span my entire lifetime.

For the past two years, I've been on what I thought was a little side trip through pediatric cancer.  Some days the truth of that is still hard to grasp......my precious daughter has cancer.  How is that even possible???  Kids aren't supposed to get cancer, and especially, my kid is not supposed to get cancer.  Pediatric cancer is something that should happen only in the St. Jude Hospital commercial;  it's something that happens to "them", not to "real" people, and certainly not to my daughter!
But then I look no further than my kitchen counter, and I see the evidence of reality in the bottles of chemo pills lined up and the medicine calendar waiting to be checked off.  And I am forced to acknowledge that this is my reality.  And with that present reality comes the realization that, for me, this is no little side trip that will soon come to an end; this is also my future.  This is a part of the world that I will never choose to leave.  This is a little gift.....a place to seek and to share the God I love......not just for this day, but for all the days I have left on my journey through this temporary home.  God has woven a love for these kids and their families into my heart, especially for their moms and their siblings. I don't know what that looks like in the future for me, and just know without a doubt that I won't ever be leaving this part of this world because the love it too deep and too wide to deminish this side of Heaven.

This is not the post that I set out to write this morning, but I guess it was the post that god had for me for this moment.  It's a gentle reminder of His call, met with a whisper from my heart......yes, Lord.
                                                                   
                                                            Amy