Day 30.... The God Bead

Hi all, it has been a few days since I have posted, but not by design, life has just happened.  Sharon has gone back to work (working half days), and of course last night I had to attend the Arena Bowl these are priorities to us, and heck, the kid is now 18, an adult, she can take care of herself.. Right?

Well, over the last few days, Hannah has rejoined the world.  Her numbers are great, she looks good, the sores are almost gone, and she is eating.  She is being weened off all of the drugs that she has been taking, all preparing her to come home.  We were expecting this to happen on about Wednesday.

Well today we were dropped a bombshell.  She is coming home on MONDAY!!! RED ALERT, RED ALERT!!!.  The house is not ready!! The carpet is not in!!  What shall we do?  The elves kicked it into high gear today, and we are basically waiting on the carpet at this point.  We are at the mercy of shipping and there is nothing that we can do about it.

So Monday, when Hannah gets discharged, she will be going to a "halfway house" of sorts.  She and Sharon will be staying at the house of Dr Tom and Janis.  What could be better, going from the cancer ward to the home of a cancer Dr, and former nurse.  Perfect!
 
On Friday, Hannah, Sharon and I were in the room when Chantelle came in to tell us about Beads of Courage www.beadsofcourage.org.

What we found out about this organization is that they help kids that are seriously ill deal with their illness by giving them beads to string together representing their journey.

Each color and style of bead has a different meaning.  For example the number of days that you have had Chemo is a specific colored bead and you get a bead for each treatment.

Other beads include:

One bead for each day in the hospital (this was a lot  for Hannah)
Number of times you had a poke.
Hair loss bead
Milestone bead.  etc.

As Chantelle counted out the days in hospital bead, and got to 30, Hannah was shocked.  She looked at Sharon and I and said "wow, that's a long time it doesn't even seem like two weeks"  Sharon and I then let her know that about two weeks of her stay was brutal.  What we came to find out is that she has very little recollection of that time - this is a good thing.

Personally I enjoyed learning about the beads.  Upon reflection I realized that the bead box was missing one bead.  The God Bead.  While it might be similar to the anchor bead, to me it would have much more meaning.

The God Bead would be a sign to me that the only reason that we have gotten through this is because of Him.  At the time of hurt, questioning and pain, it was the bead I needed most.

 I realized that the shape of the God Bead is that of a Cross.

 Eucaristia