It's a good thing.

Back when Rachael got an infection in her drain tube (you can read about part of that crappy week here) I was watching her go through some pretty dreadful and painful stuff and I decided that we would take advantage of the good things cancer has to offer.  Wrap your head around that sentence.  Anyway, we were encouraged to sign up for Adopt-A-Family with the Candlelighter's to help our family with Christmas and at first I was all like, "No, no," and then Rachael starts talking about how she hates her life and there is nothing good and she just wishes she was never born and I'm all like, "Okay, whatever it takes to show her the good side of this we'll go ahead and do."

So I go to fill out the sign up sheet and OH CRAP.  I have to actually write a wish list.  Um... I have no idea what to get her, much less help someone else buy for her!  Not only that but we got to do a wish list for Marc and.... AND Tom and me!  I got a call from one of the staff members and she's all, "Um, you don't have anything here for mom and dad."  Seriously?  Because we were just planning to skip Christmas this year.

But I did manage to pull together a list of a few things and then I get a call from this couple named Tim and Donna and "would it be okay if we stop by today with Christmas gifts for your family?"  Today?!  I just gave my list yesterday.  Wow, you people are good!

So around dinnertime this amazing couple shows up with LOADS of gift bags.  I thought they must be delivering for about three families but they were all for us.  I got teary and said to Donna, "You know, I have just not felt into the Christmas spirit at all this year but this is simply amazing."  She got tears in her eyes too and told me she hasn't felt in the mood for Christmas in seven years.  That's when her son Adam died very suddenly of cancer at four years old.  After that they started Adam's Angels Ministries and she said that giving to kids with cancer is her Christmas.

They had to be at a football game for their son Andrew so we had far too little time to visit and get to know one another but these people... meeting these amazing, caring, selfless, brokenhearted, hopeful, beautiful people... that's the good part of cancer.  Despite the gifts, which were an amazing blessing and will constitute about 90% of our Christmas, just being a part of this family's life, even for a short time is one of those things we can look back to and say, "See Rachael.  See!  It's not all bad!"

Thank you Tim and Donna for giving our family, not just gifts, but a moment we can point to and say, "This was something good about getting cancer."

So we got another blood draw today and lo and behold her counts are back up to 1800!  Thank you for your prayers, God said "yes" to this one.  It was quite freeing really, it was so far out of my hands that at this point I have every confidence that God is in control.  We re-started interferon today and tomorrow will be the last day of high dose.  And tomorrow... this is such exciting news I'm just wiggling in my chair typing about it... tomorrow we remove the catheter!!  See that?!  TWO exclamation points!!  There I went again!!  I haven't been this excited since I got my netbook.

No more dressing changes!  No more dressing changes!!  I think we'll go out and celebrate tomorrow by eating TWO poptarts instead of only one!