Day -1

Tomorrow is the big day. Ryan got sick when he got up this morning and had a little bit of a fever, but after the nausea medicine and 3 more hours of sleep, he was a different person. He finally decided he was going to get up around noon. He ate lunch - a pretty big lunch, checked email, opened his mail, and finally took a shower. Then Aubrey came for her visit, we tried giving her a mask so that she wouldn't be scared of Ryan's, but she didn't want anything to do with that mask either. She did a little better at the end of the visit, we took a walk down the hallway to see where Russell would be when he was having his procedure done and she did hold his hand for a few seconds, but that's all she would do; she held Grandma's hand for the rest of the walk.

Ryan wore his Michigan hat today when he went to the waiting room to visit Aubrey and the nurses told him he wasn't allowed back on the unit until he took his hat off. He told them that his head was cold and he needed it.

Aubrey's Bible story for tonight was about Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat believed that God was in control. Her book is about Bible heroes and at the end it says: "Heroes keep their eyes fixed on the Lord, not on the circumstances. No matter what kind of battle you are facing, God is in control." Our battle has already began, but tomorrow is an important day in that battle and we are fixing our eyes on the Lord because we know that he has the entire situation until his control. We are trusting that Russell will give enough cells tomorrow morning so that Ryan will receive them tomorrow afternoon. The next two weeks will then be an uphill climb as Ryan's counts will be bottomed out for 9-13 days until his body accepts the new marrow and begins making cells on its own.

We appreciate prayers for both Ryan and Russell and that the cells and Ryan's body will accept each other. Ryan will have side effects, but we pray that they will be minimal and that everything will continue to go smoothly as it has so far.

God's grace is covering us
-A