Sunday, December 7th

Hello,

  Michele came home from the hospital today! She is feeling much better, although still tired. Her blood counts are much improved over the beginning of the week, but there will be no treatments this week. We may need to see the Oncologist at some point in the week, but it is mostly a week for her to recuperate. We came home with a 'starter kit' of Arixtra, the anticoagulant that she will need to have injected each day for the next several months.

  One of the other developments this past week occurred on Friday. I had gone home to tend to the cats, collect the mail, take a shower, do some laundry, etc, etc. Just as I was getting ready to leave the house and go back to the hospital for the night, I was in the kitchen taking some vitamins, when I heard something in the basement that seemed out of place. I stood by the cellar steps and listened. All I could hear was the gentle rumble of the clothes dryer. Then I heard it again; the slap of a water drop falling onto concrete. I headed down the steps and began to hear the hiss of a water leak. Sure enough, water was running out of a section of insulation on a hot water pipe. I tore off the insulation and there was a spray of water shooting out of a pin hole in the old steel pipe. I isolated the pipe, drained it, and shut down the water heater. I took a quick look around to be sure there were no other surprises, then left for the hospital.

  Now I want you to know that I put this event in the 'Blessing' column! I had been in the basement several times earlier in the day and that pipe was not leaking. If it had waited 5 minutes more before starting to leak, I would have returned to a flooded basement on Saturday. I firmly believe this was a gift from God, and am very, very thankful. As it is, it only took me about 2 hours to replace the old section of pipe with new copper, so it was a minor glitch instead of a major catastrophe.

  Another blessing I should mention occurred at the hospital Thursday night. I had been sleeping on the floor in Michele's room each night, much to the consternation of the nursing staff. They offered recliners and sofa accommodations in other rooms, but that kind of defeated the purpose of why I was there. Besides, the hospital recliners feel like a rock recliner out of the Flinstone cartoons. The floor wasn't that bad. What I didn't know was that three of the rooms on the 7th floor used to be double occupancy, but now had a pull-out couch instead of a second patient bed. When one of the rooms went vacant, the Charge Nurse assigned it to us. They made housekeeping come up and clean the room at 10:00 PM, and I spent the last 3 nights in a fair amount of comfort.

  The hospital staff at Good Samaritan Hospital has been just terrific to us each time Michele has been there. The last nurse she had today told her that she had seen Michele on the floor throughout the week and was hoping she would get to have her as a patient! Other nurses who had Michele previously would stop in just to say "Hello". Many came in to give her a hug when they knew they were going to be off for a few days and might not see her when they got back. We honestly feel like we have made friends there. Thank God for people who have a heart to serve.

  Of course, a constant source of blessing is you folks who read these updates and pray for us. Jesus said that we shouldn't worry because our Father knows what we need before we ask for it, but the scriptures still exhort us to "Pray without ceasing". To be honest, I don't get it, but I don't have to. This is how God wants it to work, and it does! So, "Thank you" for praying, and please don't stop!

With grateful hearts,

Tim and Michele