How I spent my zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sunday: We woke up, we went to church, hung out with some friends, met some new people (seriously folks, If I write a blog, reading it isn't stalking me. If you are outside my window, watching me type this with a pair of binoculars, that is stalking. (And I little disappointing that you just wouldn't come up and play a game or chat with me for a bit...)) as well. I like new people. It increases the odds I'll find someone else who has some soft of computer job. (so far no luck)

After church we drove home where I took off my jacket, and promptly fell into bed. I think I remember Lisa bringing in food a time or two, but I didn't get out of bed until easily 6pm. That's a whole five hours after I landed there. Then it was dinner-time, watch an episode of something (TV) with Lisa, took a shower and (you guessed it) back to bed.

That is until my alarm started strumming a spanish melody (I changed it from the Phantom of the Opera as the wakeup wasn't so gentle) this morning at 6:40am. I had my typical blood draw this morning. We were the first folks into the clinic this morning but the waiting room filled up fast. Guess blood is on a lot of people's agenda's first thing Monday morning. In a lot of ways this will probably define the week for a lot of people.

The goal of all this blood drawing is to check and see where my platelets are at. On Friday they were at 41, Tuesday previous to that they were at 31. The goal here is to get to 100. When I'm at 100 little bells will go off and alarms will sound and they will re-admit me to the hospital and this whole process will start over again.

Despite the road to recovery the past few weeks I kind of get the feeling like it's time to go back for more chemo again. We haven't knocked this stuff out yet, so the time I spend hanging around really is just more time for cancer to do it's horrible dance of death in my body. It's a catch 22: I want to be able to do things, but I can't really ignore what's inside me and the things that it is going to take, require, for me to remove it.

As I am sure some of you saw I made it into the kitchen on Friday for the first time in a while. The bread turned out far better than any bread I have made before. Which came as a comfort to me that I could actually make bread that people would want to consume. Not just food that birds would eye with excitement.

Since it's Monday and my readership spikes on Monday's I thought I'd cover all sorts of topics. Lately I've been going through the book of Deuteronomy, in the Old Testament, our "in-house" pastor at OC told me once that he thought I could find a lot of parallels between the Israelites wandering through the desert and then coming into God's promises and myself battling cancer and hoping to come out the other side and the promises God has in those chapters. It's been good reading. It's more "story" based than some of the other old testament books because it's Moses talking to the nation of Israel.

And in the final bits of news, my hair has started to fall out. I shaved off the hair on top of my head at MDA (don't really remember it) but they have a free haircut place for patients. Eyelashes, eyebrows, beard hair, all falling out. Thank fully it's all short so I don't have to deal with great gobs and length of it falling on my keyboard or something.

Some prayer requests: That my platelets will continue to rise and I can once again get the chemo I need. That God will cleanse my body of this cancer. That despite everything Lisa and I will continue to grow closer and be able to help people around us.
[Update: Something I forgot, we still have a house in Colorado that would make our life a LOT easier if it would sell, especially somewhere near our price. Thanks...]

Also team, I realize I have a lot of free time these days, and while I greatly appreciate YOU praying for ME, I was wondering if I might return the favor and use some of my free time to pray for you. If you have something I could pray for you for you can contact me in one of several ways: email ben dot morrell at gmail dot com or just send me a private message in Facebook. I'd love to spend some time helping all of you who have been praying for me. No matter how big or how small. (Prayer requests in comments will be deleted)

Thanks Team!!

~B.