Hit with a memory...

We made it home to grandma's house. It is 8:45 and we are thrilled to not be in the hospital tonight. I consider today a success! Ashley did very well today and I was so proud of her. Her body is now in destruction mode and we are praying it is destroying those cancer cells. Only 11 more weeks to go after this one. She should have a couple of good days in her before the count bottoms out and then the "fun" begins again.

As I stepped into the hall and around the corner to get a diet coke I was suddenly hit with a memory. I was looking out a wall of windows across the street and I could see the top floor of the parking garage. I found myself staring at a parking space that we had occupied the year before. I was frozen for a moment as I remembered how I felt that evening loading my sweet Ashley Kate into the car. Instantly tears began to sting my eyes as I actually felt the hopelessness that had enveloped me that summer evening. On that particular night the pain in my heart was so,so great. It all seemed hopeless. I cried huge tears that splashed onto my Ashley as I buckled her into the car seat that evening. She was so tiny. She was so yellow. She was so thin. She was so sick. She was dying and I knew it. She was running out of time. There have been very few times in my life when I have hurt that bad. I did not see, I did not feel, I did not have hope of a future for my baby on that evening as I prepared to drive home to Dave, Blake, and Al. Without a transplant her death was imminent. She needed a transplant and we were so scared. That night we decided to fumble our way through the process.

Watching my sweet Ashley play and laugh and giggle as her chemo was infused into her body today almost seemed unreal to me. She looks so good. She is not dying. I know she has cancer, but she looks so good, so strong. She is surviving. She is living. She is growing. She is happy. She is a miracle, and I am so humbled. He did and still does great things in her life. I drove home that night broken before Him not knowing which way to go. I prayed. I cried. I think I even screamed. I was so desperate for her to live and I knew that without a miracle she would not. I am so thankful that He is a big God. A big enough God that He can handle my brokeness. A big enough God that He can listen to my hoplessness. A big enough God that somehow He could reach down and wrap His arms around me that night and give me what it took to keep on going. I wanted to curl up and die. If she could not live then I could not handle it. I was so weak, but He was and is a big enough God that He had a plan that I could not see.

Today the memory of my struggle and my coming to grips with the reality of the seriousness of my daughters illness hit me hard. He has brought me so far. I am no longer hopeless. I have seen Him do big things in her life. Cancer? This will not beat Him. I believe He is still working His plan and even though I never saw this part coming I have hope that it is just a chapter, a small chapter in Ashley's story.

Thank you for taking her to Him in prayer today. Thank you for continuing to love this little one. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the part you are playing in her life, her miracle, her story. Good night and may you be blessed by the God who gives us hope. Trish