God Bless Your Inheritance

Anya was able to sleep for a good part of last night but probably only because of the morphine. The pic line site is still "burning" her therefore we weren't able to discontinue the morphine until this morning. The doctor guesses that the "burning" sensation is a result of damage to the bone during the procedure.

As a mom who doesn't even like to give her kids Tylenol, giving Anya so many drugs including morphine is difficult for me. I spoke with the nurse and she said that we don't have to fear her getting addicted to the pain killer but rather that she may develop a tolerance for it. Since we have a long road ahead we hope that the pain can be controlled with something else today to prevent even this lesser of the two evils.

The doctors had intended to give her the chemo drug that is injected directly into the leg muscle this morning at 11am. But her blood counts weren't good enough so they are going to give her another platelet transfusion this afternoon and hopefully give her the shots this evening.

Some good news - it seems that Anya's tummy has shrunk one centimeter or so which may mean the leukemia cells are responding to treatment. The doctors hoped this would happen within 5-7 days after the first treatment (done on Monday) so it looks like we are on schedule. On Monday they intend to sedate Anya again to do another bone marrow aspirate to get a better picture of the leukemia's response and also to put a pic line in her arm so they can take the one out of her groin.

Points of prayer:
1. The results of the bone marrow aspirate on Monday are very important. According to the doctors, if the leukemia cells have responded well to treatment at this point, Anya has a better chance for the future.
2. "There is no relationship between the severity of side effects and how well treatment is working" (Childhood Cancer, Darr). So we are asking God to prevent side effects from nausea to pain to infection to organ damage to make this as easy as possible for little Anya.

And my personal prayer for Anya for today comes from Ps 28:8,9 "The Lord is their strength, And He is the saving refuge of His anointed. Save your people, And bless Your inheritance; Shepherd them also, And bear them up forever."

I pray that God would save Anya, His inheritance, and be her strength. I ask that he would be her Shepherd to lead, guide & comfort her and to bear her up forever - both now while she is sick and throughout her future. AMEN!