Numbers

Van asked me to give a health update. Because I am so nice to him, and try to be easy to get along with, I will comply. (I wish this statement was more accurate!)

White count is slightly up, but not impressively.
Platelets are the same.
But...CMV is down, and that is a very good thing.

I go back on Thursday to be blasted with two different iv meds, ugly pre-meds that make me feel like a goat that ate too many tires, and a breathing treatment to protect my lungs that makes me feel claustrophobic. Not looking forward to that day. Mom and Dad are coming back to help for another few days to get us through this one.

I'm not sure why, but for about 3-4 weeks I've not been able to eat--literally a few bites a day, but not losing weight. Very, very weird. I was down to coke floats and bananas. Well, over this weekend (again, I'm not sure why) but my appetite is much better. It takes me a long time to eat, but I can do it. I'm thankful for this. Hopefully, my renewed interest in Beef and Broccoli won't cause me to bloat up like a sow. I'm also hoping this will help my low energy level and will be motivated to get off of my duff.

Van's watching a 9/11 remembrance. We explained for the first time to the boys what happened 10 years ago before church knowing it would be mentioned. Our Cade has one volume, so if something puzzles him during church, he doesn't mind belting out a question or 20 to us. We figured we'd prevent this before heading out, and I'm glad we did. Trying to explain it to innocent children was not fun. Anyway, so Van's watching this 9/11 remembrance, and feels like the conductor is putting a spell on the orchestra because he looks like someone from Harry Potter. We're really high-class cultured citizens around here.

I remember being in Houston that day. Tricia called my school to let me know what happened. While we were talking, the second tower was hit. I told the office people what happened and walked back out to my teaching partner and class of 3-year-olds on the playground. We could see downtown from where we were, and didn't know whether just to keep playing as normal or go ahead and take the children home on vans, knowing that their parents would want them close. We decided to finish out the day. It was a little scary being so close to the skyscrapers and not having access to the news. I'm sure the parents that day were glad to receive their children, and it was good to get home to Van. We lived in an apartment with 2 windows. I did my American preventative-terror duty and bought plastic and duct tape to cover the windows with in case we were ever attack with any bio-terror agent. Van occasionally still teases me that covering the windows would have done any good whatsoever, but I was prepared! And...for many years I didn't have to buy any plastic shower curtains because of our ample supply.