Nicole engrafted!!

Nicole ANC is 500!!! Nicole has engrafted!!  It's now time to get her ready to be able to leave and to go to my sister's house or the "half-way house".  They are going to taper back her PCA pain meds.  Hopefully she will be off the PCA in three days. They are taking her off one of her big gun antibiotics today and the other one tomorrow. They also are switching some of her meds oral and hopefully she will tolerate them.  They also are tapering off her IV food and switching back to feeds at a slow rate.  Again, hopefully she will tolerate them.  She also needs to come off oxygen.  We haven't heard back from the chimerism test; it takes a couple of days to hear back the results.

We have been down this road before and it's a long road.  We know what could be ahead of us.  She will still have clinic visits about 2-3 times a week to watch her blood levels and complications.  We still have a few months before Nicole can return back to home to Hyrum, and there will be around-the-clock meds that I will now need to do.  She will probably have another admits for various reasons. 

With the great news for Nicole, my heart turns to our cancer friends who are still fighting their hard battles and those who have gone to the other side.  My friends who have gone to the other side are a hard for me to talk about.  They have a special place in my heart.  This journey has changed my perspective on things in life.  As Elder Wirthlin taught: "Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.

But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.

No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come." (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2006/10/sunday-will-come?lang=eng) Everybody has their Fridays, I think we have many Fridays, but Sunday will come.  Things always work out as President Hinckley taught:

"It isn’t as bad as you sometimes think it is.

It all works out. Don’t worry.

I say that to myself every morning.

It will all work out.

Put your trust in God,

and move forward with faith

and confidence in the future.

The Lord will not forsake us.

He will not forsake us.

If we will put our trust in Him,

if we will pray to Him,

if we will live worthy of His blessings,

He will hear our prayers."

(https://www.lds.org/ensign/2006/02/put-your-trust-in-god?lang=eng)

Things will work out.  In this life or the next it will work out! The Lord is mindful of each one of!  He is in the details of our lives!  He knows are heart!  He loves us!! 

It is amazing what some neutrophils will do to perk you up:)