04/29/05 PM
9:14 PM (Randall posting): It has been a long day. Not that it has been a terrible day, just a long one. Susan and Elisabeth are still at the dress rehearsal. We had an early dinner so they could head out in time to get up to Campbell. Sophie and Eileen went to WalMart while I worked on my sermon for Sunday.
Susan just called and said they are on their way home. I certainly hope the recital does not go this late tomorrow!
I gave Sophie her Ara-C this evening and Eileen gave her the Mercaptopurine. As I was injecting the medicine, I got kind of overwhelmed by how matter-of-fact this whole experience is becoming. Last night as Susan and I were out at a restaurant, a couple behind us had a child about Sophie's age. As the mother lifted her daughter out of the high chair, exposing the child's belly, I seriously expected a "tail" from an IV to be poking out of her shirt. Contrary to the way my mind seems to be working, not every child has an IV. Not every child has leukemia. Not every child is losing her hair. Not every child wakes up vomiting in the night. Not every child is receiving chemotherapy every which way possible. My child is.
And you know what, it is beginning to feel very "normal." It's hard to remember what our life before this was like. Things that happened in December are like from some distant part of our past. This is our life now, and this is where we are at. There is nothing weird about this anymore. The so-called "Real World" is the world you are in, not some world "out there." Our world has changed, to be sure, but it is just as real (maybe even more so) than it was four months ago.
Best of all, God is still with us (to paraphrase John Wesley).