This Week & My Liver

It's been a good week in this household. Without any appointments (except physio), it's been great to enjoy some family time. I've had the privilege of watching my little boy become enthralled with playing with pillows and finding joy in sucking on the handles of drawers (more than a little disgusting to me). When he  wakes, he also routinely will have three soothers (one in his mouth and one in each hand), and he has successfully put two soothers in his mouth at the same time! I have also become his jungle gym; he loves to crawl and climb and is everywhere at once. And his new favorite toy is being surprised by whatever it I hide inside of an empty Kleenex box.

The best part of every day is the afternoon. Xhevat comes home and we eat while Matias has his nap. After that the three of us, along with JR, go out for a walk or play on the floor of the living room. There is no schedule and things don't need to get done. We just need to enjoy each other and be. 

And today is Friday (well, it's a continuation of my Friday). It's Saturday at about 1:30 AM and I'm awake thanks to my steroids and my sleeping pills haven't quite kicked in yet. I received my chemo earlier today... an 80% dose because my neutrophils were on the lower side. Also one of my liver enzymes increased fairly significantly this week. If the increase is a one time thing, there's no need to be concerned.

I'm looking forward to seeing some family this weekend & getting away for a few days next week (I'll tell you more about this later).

If you're like me and believe in the power of the One Who Hears Our Prayers, I'd like us all to be praying for my liver. More specifically, please pray for the following:

- all of my liver enzymes to be heading back in the proper direction and specifically for the one that was elevated this week. Please pray against upward trends as this could mean my cancer isn't responding to the chemo.

- I thank God for decreasing the cancer in my liver & pray that it will continue to decrease for many weeks, months and years to come.

- Medically, my cancer isn't expected to be able to be gotten rid of completely from my liver. I'd like you to join me in asking God for a miracle that my liver would be completely healed and cancer free (it can't hurt asking... the worst He could say is no).

- If not healed, then to have my cancer healed from some areas of my liver so there might be an option to get rid of the cancerous areas (right now although the sizes of the cancerous lesions are getting smaller, the cancer is widely spread throughout my entire liver with too many lesions to count).

- If not to certain areas, then that the lesions would decrease in size or stay the same size for many months and even years... and that there would be a time when my liver lesions are countable.

- I could go on and on with my many "If not this, then..." requests. No matter what journey is chosen for me, pray that my faith would grow and that my life would reflect my Strength, my Hope, my Peace, my Comforter & my Saviour.

The liver is the big dark organ on the top left and center of the picture.