Party for Noah today!

So tonight we had a discussion about what our friend Noah and his family had been through. Today, Noah had his right eye enucleated and we wanted our children to understand how hard that it was but that sometimes bad or hard things happen to people and it is not their fault. In fact it is certain that everyone will have trials and hardships in life but that if we continue to have faith in Christ than we can hope for a better world. We talked about making that faith our anchor so that no matter what came our way our ship would not be taken off course. It was fun to see the kids excited about dropping their anchors so that we would never get too far away from each other. That is what I truly do hope for.

Anyway, Noah's family has been a good example of having faith even in times of terrible trial. We also discussed how today should be like a celebration for Noah in that he was getting rid of a whole bunch of cancer cells. So then we had a party and ate the pineapple upside-down cake that Stephanie had made. You can see a picture of Gracie and one of her sisters and the cake. It was very good and we enjoyed cheering Noah on with our little celebration.

We continue to pray for Noah, that the treatments in his left eye will effectively kill the cancer. We hope that the same goes for Gracie's treatments in both of her eyes. She has been so good these past couple of weeks (besides being a 3 year old that never wants to go to bed). She is so full of love and energy. Today she wanted to play hide-and-go-seek every time I was near her. I would count to 10 or so and she would be off. Then as soon as I said, "Ready or not, here I come," I would hear this squeal of delight and see Gracie burst out of her hiding space with a huge grin. Often she would jump into my arms and say, "I love you one Daddy!" She would then expect me to say, "I love you too, Gracie!" Then, "I love you three Daddy!" etc. She usually gets stuck on six or eight for a while then lets the game end and is off to find where her sisters have hid.

She is a real sweetheart and we love having her in our home. It still often feels like a really bad dream when I think about the cancer that is in her eyes. We so very badly hope and pray for good news in next weeks EUA. There has been little progress over the past couple of months- no further growth but still little improvement. The doctors, Stephanie and I are worried that the right eye may never respond and may need to be removed however we continue to hope for improvement over this last month as her series of three injections should have had a chance to do their job by now. 

We are so very thankful for the generous support we have been given and the prayers that have been offered in our behalf. We feel so very blessed to have the family and friends we do. Sometimes life is hard but it is difficult not to feel so very blessed when I look around and see all of the many things that I have been given. If I had my way, I can think of a few things I would have left out of my life but I will gladly deal with all of the hard things for the right to be with my family.