Reindeer Games

Yesterday George had his platelet transfusion. His labs came back this morning showing that the platelets came up to 41 which is still considered very low but that is way better then the 17 that they were the prior day. His hemoglobin had dropped a tiny bit but was still right at 11. He continues to have a rash all over his chest and back which is from the Fifths/Strep but other then that he has not gotten any fevers. Thank you Lord! Today he has been a little low on energy. I’m not that concerned. I just think that some days his body feels all of the side effects of the medication a little more then others. He only has two more weeks of steroids which is great news! He has slimmed down considerably and not so frantic about eating. His anger management has progressed tremendously as well.  When speaking with his dr today he mentioned something about graft versus host disease. This is when your body rejects the donors cells and the outcome is not good at all. I was not aware that this was still in the cards for George. I thought that past day 100 he was in the clear. This is not the case. With viruses, your body fights so hard to get rid of the illness. With George his body is also trying to replace or build back up all of his blood cells that get knocked out as well as fighting the illness itself. Each time he goes through this his marrow weakens and becomes more susceptible to graft versus host. This needs to still be a constant prayer for George. No graft versus host. It can turn everything he has gone through and overcome totally around. It is the most serious thing that goes wrong in a transplant. I believe that George will not ever get this. I just have to keep reminding myself to never let up on  praying for this specific circumstance. Sometimes when I am praying I stall out and seem to repeat things over and over. I usually am just praying for healing and protection. Well complete healing without any more setbacks needs to be the prayer being prayed at this moment. This has been and continues to be a very long journey. He/we need to beat this. God heal George. Completely. Give us strength. Give us endurance. Give us confidence in your plan. We believe and know you are good in all things. We thank you for bringing us this far and carrying us high throughout everything. We ask for the remainder of this journey to be filled with more victories and more grace throughout the good and the bad.    George doesn’t let any of these viruses totally get him down. He seems to be fixated on reindeer even more then Santa this year. Well you know that if anyone at Nemours catches wind of anything George likes they promptly oblige his fancy. Let the reindeer games begin.       I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13