It's official. We heard from the docs and Asa's AFP, alpha feta protein numbers are 10.8. That's 10.8, down from 20 a month ago, down from over 51,000 in February. 12 and under is within normal. Praising God for normal! A friend of mine has a nice little writing about the absurdity of our labels of normal, because in terms of our humanity, I'm not sure what we are measuring against. But for today, philosophy aside, for medical reasons, normal is fantastic, because normal reiterates what the docs said a few weeks ago, that they can safely call Asa "disease-free." So, after 226 of the longest days of our lives, 6 chemos, one specialized chemo embolization, a liver resection, 3 yet longer weeks in ICU, and a number I lost count of long ago well in excess of 80 days in hospital, we are free and clear! Truly a death to life miracle! God has been incredibly gracious!
That being said, please do continue to pray. Once a cancer patient, always a cancer patient. Now we are just entering the world of what's now called "long term survivorship." That means you spend most of your childhood being checked periodically, starting out regularly, and then moving on to not so regularly. There are still MRI's, EKG's, ABR's in Asa's future, some of those things more than others. The next step will be to remove Asa's port before the end of the year and there will be an MRI scheduled late November/early December. But, after next month's appointment, we may actually graduate to no longer having to frequent clinic monthly. Hard to imagine seeing that reality as we've spent most every Thursday this year either there or on the 9th floor oncology unit. Freedom! Normalcy!…. Recovery?….
I think I can't say all this without sharing the burden of those we have walked with. There are still kids that we have walked alongside, left in oncology in clinic and on floor, that have both good and poor prognoses. You never shake that burden, even if your kid was the one who escaped. I think it's good to bear one another's burdens and we are truly and strangely very grateful for this experience in that regard. There are things in life you wouldn't ask for, would never want to go through again, wouldn't wish on your worst enemies, but you know you are better for them and that God has used those things in some miraculous way. I think that's where we stand. Please do continue to pray for Caroline and also for our friend, Brendan. They are still fighting the fight. There are many others.
Obviously, huge thanks today for the clean bill of health. We are incredibly grateful for the prospects of normal childhood for Asa, grateful for thoughts of normal months of raising the rest of our crowd around here without this craziness. Happy today to have a day at home with the crowd, cars to drive, people to fix the ones that don't work, grace from friends, smiles and giggles from Asa, and head full of white white fuzzy hair. Grateful for God's provision for us with kind employers, people who have stuck by us and encouraged us along the way, covered us in prayer, covered us financially, scraped us off the ground in the pits of this. Thankful to God for our great oncology team, the countless nurses - you know who you are - who do thankless jobs. We appreciate you! Praise be to God for Asa! Yahweh heals!
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