Goodbye Dawn....

This is Dawn.  A beautiful young lady, bright, energetic, loving and so incredibly full of life.  She made a difference in so many people over many years, and deeply so this past year.  Her blog is brimming over with people who's life she has changed in some way or another..... go and read it - it's truly humbling.  http://www.goshdawnit.com/.

Today she died.   Leukemia was just too strong, too out of control and her body could just not take it any more.  

This breaks my heart to see yet another beautiful person taken by this disease. It sucks! I know there is nothing fair in life, nothing promised and nothing sure......but geez!  Look at her!  She fought so hard against leukemia, always with a smile and a glint in her eye.  I am so sad that she did not get better.  So sad.  My deepest condolences to all her family and friends - she is going to be sorely missed.

This also brings much closer to home the monster we are dealing with.  The fact that I have it so incredibly easy by comparison, what with Steven doing so well makes me tremendously grateful.  This is just one of the ripples that will forever flow from Dawn's life and affect mine.

Yesterday Steven's PCR kit arrived from Oregon and I noticed that my 'bitch factor' increased a fair bit as soon as that box landed on my desk.  I fight so hard against worrying, I don't want to worry and I know it changes nothing at all.  But it happens.  So I looked at it once more, and I am going to try not to give worry too much time this time.  Again.  

Last night when Steven came to pick up the kit, I found myself burbling out the instructions - again.  He gently said "I know, mom" and I was able to zip it up.  He does know, and he does it right every time, yet every time I find myself telling him again.  Aaaaaarggghhhh!  But, as I said to him today - one day he will have kids and then he will understand why I worry about things like I do.  He just looked at me with a smile in his eyes and said not to worry about it.  I cannot express to him enough my thanks that he deals with both the leukemia and me in such an incredible way..... 

He had his CBC today as well and I have to share them here.........they are almost perfect!

WBC 5.8  

LY 22.9

MO 6.6

GR 70.5

LY# 1.3

MO# 0.4

GR# 4.1

RBC 4.09

HGB 13.3

HCT 38.9

MCV 95.2

MCH 32.6

MCHC 34.3

RDW 13.4

PLT 255.0

MPV 6.3   This is the only one that is slightly low, and only very slightly at that.  It feels so good to type all these numbers and they are all good!  PCR numbers next, please!  :)

Steven also looked so relaxed, at ease, happy and well..............totally ok today!  And I realized again just how much my 'relaxedness' depends on him doing well.  I hope that he never feels that he must protect me from how he is feeling regarding the cml, and I know that he relaxes when I am relaxed too.

And I am,  really I am.  Even with the utter tragedy of the world losing Dawn today, I am relaxed with my life.  I know I cannot change this in his life and I cannot change the effects it has in mine.  The only thing I can change is how we deal with it...... Oh how I am now laughing!  I think if I go back three months and the three months before that - before each and every pcr test I type the same sort of stuff.  Ok - so this time I will try even harder.

And to show how confident I am - and no, I am NOT daring the Universe! - we have planned a vacation, leaving here at the end of January.  We are driving across country, we will stop off to visit my daughter Joleen and her husband at the Marine Base in Twentynine Palms in the California desert, and then down to Baja Sur....  We are hoping to spend a good month away this time - much of it on the beaches in tropical temperatures down in the south end of Baja.  The whales will be there, the turtles hatching, the sun will be shining and the beaches filled with shells.  My camera's are dancing already!

This is how I need to live my life.  If I sit and worry and not live for fear of what might happen, what would I be doing to my children?  What message would I be giving them?  Yes it hurts when leukemia claims another life and it grabs me by the throat and makes me angry and sad, but it also drills into me deeper the need to really live life as well as I can.  And in this way maybe I will instill the same determination into my three kids - whether they live to only 60 years old or all the way to 90!  May they see that if their 'old ma' can do this, they can too.

To Dawn's family.  The news today was devastating - I had so many hopes that Dawn would be 

up and about and flashing that smile around again.  I hope you know that the ripples she sent out have already affected my life and through that, the lives of others that I share my growth with.  Thank you.  I am deeply sad for you all.

Love and light

Annie