Normal Life & Hannah Update

Lily this morning as we were leaving for pre-school (Cars is a favorite!)
Hannah & Jane this weekend


Life has settled down after our week in the hospital. Hannah is in school (2nd grade) full time and Lily is in pre-school 2 days a week. Both girls are so happy at with their school programs ... and that makes me a very happy camper!!! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE having time to myself. I still do not have the house organized the way I'd like to but I am coming to the realization that I might need to fly my sister Miriam out here for a week of Organizational Boot Camp -- she is a-m-a-z-i-n-g!


Lily -- she is the pumpkin pie of the century. Absolutely brilliant and just a complete dream. She is tiny but fierce. She doesn't forget anything & repeats everything back to you.... even days (or weeks) later. She is too far into language development to even count how many words she knows & can clearly say. Tomorrow (1/26) marks 4 years since our adoption paper work was Logged-in to China. 1/26 was always a sad day but this year we can truly celebrate -- Lily is home & Hannah is here to celebrate with her!!!

Life is just good & I am truly so thankful! Tonight I went to the store & almost cried just buying a cute little outfit for Lily (she needs nothing - thanks, Christy!) but I just wanted to pick out something for her! It was so fun to shop for her & I can't wait to dress her up tomorrow!!

Hannah is loving school -- taking off with an interest in reading & continues to love math. Her cousin Jane slept over this past weekend & they had a great time playing Wii & camping out together on the top bunk. I know Roisin was doing the Irish jig in heaven as our girls were causing trouble til late into the night (or morning, depending on your time zone!).

The update on Hannah's recovery: I can't remember if I mentioned this on the blog but so many of you have been praying so I want to make sure you know specifically how the Lord has answered SO MANY prayers!! The December bone marrow biopsy at NIH showed that Hannah has responded to the treatment that she received in June at NIH ("ATG Horse" is the name of the drugs she got). There was only a 30% chance that she would respond to that round of treatment and at the time we even wondered if we should even try the 2nd round of ATG. Thank you, Lord, that Hannah's life rests in the palm of Your Hand, not in a statistic! As of June 09 the cellularity rate of Hannah's bone marrow was around 10% (it had been 0% in December 08), as of this past December the cellularity rate is now between 30 - 40%. The doctors feel there is every indication that this rate will continue to climb. They have seen patients that continue to climb for a couple of years after treatment.

We are now on schedule to go to clinic every two weeks to have Hannah's blood drawn & counts checked. It will be like this for a long, long time as Hannah will always live under a little bit of the cloud of her disease. Lord willing, this is the start of her living a normal life free of Aplastic Anemia!

God is so good and I am so thankful for His healing hand on Hannah... and for the normalcy of our lives right now!