Life's treasures....

Just the other day I read about a woman's blog that just disappeared from the internet and it made me think about how I would feel if this blog just went 'poof!' forever?  So I spent some time going back in time, revisiting the places I had been over the past four years of Steven's illness.  At times it felt as if someone else was writing and at other times I laughed...... "I really wrote that?!"  What struck me the hardest was just how much these past four years has made me grow, made me open my eyes, really live life and .... well, just how far I had come on so many levels.

So - what to do about the possibility of losing everything?  Print it!  Do you know how many pages this thing is?  Wow.  I spent days turning it all around, the very first, very scared blog entry right at the top and 315 full size 8.5  x 11 inch pages later I reached the last blog of the first four years!  Now its all sorted and ready to print, apart from the need to design a front and back cover.  I am going to print two - one for Steven and Laura and one for me.  It's like a life story....  a really good one too.

Reading through some of my earlier blogs and then reading the blogs of other people that have not been as fortunate as Steven in his good response to his meds, makes me see how incredibly fortunate I have been and am.  I have so much to be grateful for and apart from Steven's health my greatest blessing really has been the people I have met along the way these past four years.  These are the people who stand with me, sometimes leading me, sometimes pushing me and always alongside me at the same time.

These are the people who, despite their sometimes unutterable pain, still email me, still make me smile and still help me grow. They make me cry too, keep me sane and drive me nuts with my inability to make things right for some of them.  Some others have grown with me as our kids get over and past the first years or as things change in our lives, as we learn how to live with this disease in one of us, and its wonderful to see how our conversations have gone from cml saturated to a breezy "no cml news" pushed somewhere inside a full email about life and other happenings.



These amazing, strong, wonderful and incredible people are of my most firm friends - even if most of them I have not met and probably won't ever meet.  I will always be deeply thankful to every one of you, I certainly could not have done this without you.  It really does "take a village".

Talking about cml and tests and things..... Steven's next blood draw is on the 27th of this month.  The time has whizzed by so incredibly fast again but its always such a breath of fresh air to call OHSU to order the kit.  The people who work there are amazing - I always get off the phone with them with a smile on my face, sending them happy thoughts.  And this time the wait for the results will be a little bit longer for me.  Steven will get them on time but this time I will be quite happy to wait the extra couple of weeks..... why?

We will be in Costa Rica when the results are due!  Yup - I found some more jungle for us to explore, more beaches that look fairly deserted,  places that hide poison dart frogs, slithering big snakes, fantastic birds and a volcano that we can watch as it spews it's lava - to mention just a few.  There are those hanging bridges through the tree canopies, zip lines and boat tours that are just waiting for us, sunshine and unprocessed foods too.  Ooooooooh - cant wait!

Love and light
Annie
ps - you can follow our Costa Rica trip at: www.travelbaggs.blogspot.com