This morning, Nick, Jess and Ruger, joined us at our church for morning services! It was "Gift Sunday", and they presented each and every child between the ages of 2 and 4th grade, in church today, with a gift! It was so cute to see Ruger open his present on stage, as well as Emma Jean, Kassy and Kimberly. Kim and Kass both got backpacks with water bottles that sported the logo "Kid City at Calvary Temple". Emma and Ruger both got toys! When Bro. Carl read the prayer list, my name was on the list. Some came up after church, wanting to know why. Very emotional.....

I am not to have anything to eat or drink after midnight tonight, until after the PORT is put in tomorrow morning at 10 am. After I am done with that, I am supposed to meet with my Clinical Nurse, Karen, to go over my prescriptions and what each drug is for. I have been reading on line what to expect from each of these drugs. Some of it is scary. But, most of what I am reading is convincing me that, even though this will not be a fun journey, it will be a journey that I will be able to get through. I have a good support system. I can not imagine the people that make this journey without the faith I have in my God. I spent all of 2007, "helping my dad" walk this path, or so I thought. Apparently, it was more to prepare me to walk the path I am about to walk. When my Oncologist sat down to begin to explain to me what a PORT was and what to expect. Tears filled my eyes. Again, not because of what he was saying. But because I had to say, I know what a PORT is, and I know what it is for....my daddy had a PORT. Again, memories. I don't know whether it is a good thing or a bad thing that I am so familiar with the terminology, the tools, the tests, etc. When I was processing all this Friday, I reached up on my shelf, and got down "The Notebook". I kept a notebook all during the journey of dad's battle against Leukemia. Everything from meds, to notes about how he felt on each day, how he responded to each drug or test or procedure. I wanted to read about the day daddy got his PORT. It was not hard to find. "Daddy got a port put in today. He left his room about 8:30 and returned around 11:30. He was asking for breakfast, saying he was hungry and had gotten nothing to eat today, and had not had any coffee." As I read this, again, memories flooded back. It is all still so vivid, even today, more than a year later. It is just so weird that now it is me hearing everyone say, we will get through this, it will be ok. I can hear daddy saying, "Quit talking to me like I have one foot in the grave!" But I also am reminded of how many times he had to go to some procedure, have some tests run, and what all we said to try and calm him down, keep him from being worried. Now I know, it doesn't matter what is said. I know that daddy did it, and he was a baby when it came to pain tolerance. But that doesn't stop me from being nervous about tomorrow.