Resurrection Life

Izzy has completed seven of twelve radiation treatments and she continues to respond beautifully. There are multiple labs they continue to monitor and all of her numbers have remained perfect, showing no indication of TMA. I thank God for this victory and all of you for praying. I am thrilled to report that if things continue to go well next week we can go home after all of our appointments on Friday! It will have been Ninety Five days since Izzy has been home. Ninety Five. Before transplant I was told we would be here Forty. Of course no one could have predicted that things would go the way they did and in hindsight I find myself relieved. If I had known how long we would have lived like this, how long my children would each have to be separated from one parent and each other, it would have been too much. Not knowing made it much more tolerable. Please pray this week that things continue to go well. For the sake of Izzy’s health and our family.

Radiation completes the second phase of treatment, Consolidation. Sometime in the next couple weeks Izzy will have scans again to see if she remains No Evidence of Disease. This is, of course, the only result that we will accept. Now that she has gotten there once we want nothing less EVER again. In four to six weeks we will begin traveling back and forth to Cincinnati again for six months of Immunotherapy. This is the final phase of treatment called Maintenance. The process of Immunotherapy will look a lot like chemotherapy but they are very, very different. During Immunotherapy Izzy’s white blood cells will be learning to seek out any remaining neuroblastoma cells and kill them themselves. I will update with more details as we get closer to our start date.

Today is Easter, a day when Christians around the world celebrate the power of resurrection life. For the first time in ten years I have not put energy into how a congregation will celebrate it. I have not sat through staff meetings talking through the importance of each element of the service nor prayed for people who would walk through the doors so desperate for the power of resurrection life. Yet this year I find myself more desperate for it’s power than I have ever been. Desperate for power to bring light to what darkness has tried to claim in our lives. Desperate for power that can restore life once again. I believe in the power of resurrection life and am forever thankful for a Savior who died on the cross to give us access to it.