The Lab work is in!

Ashley went to the hospital to have more blood tests and to get back the rest of the results of some tests they did when she was in the hospital.

She got some great news! She's responding well to the steroids and her RBC count is now 96,000! They want her to stay on steroids for another week and then they'll begin to wean her off of the steroids and watch what her blood levels do as she goes off the steroids. From how well she has responded so far they expect that this will not be chronic but they can't tell that yet.

This morning Esh and I discussed that she'd begun to have several signs of IDP while we were in Jerusalem the week preceding her hospital stay. Thus it was coming on for a while but all the symptoms were seemingly small and isolated until she got the "purple frekles" and blood blisters in her mouth. She is very thankful that she didn't injur herself during that time because that could have been very serious. God is so good to us even when we don't know how much protection we need! We hiked all over the place and it would have been realitivly easy for her to have gotten a cut or bruise that could have been rather life threatening because her platelet count was so low. She said she really feels like she's been given a second chance at life and it changes a persons outlook.

I heard this song last night and it really made me think of her:

Live Like you Were Dying
Sung by, Tim McGraw

He said I was in my early forties
with a lot of life before me
when a moment came that stopped me on a dime
and I spent most of the next days
looking at the x-rays
Talking bout the options
and talking bout sweet time
I asked him when it sank in
that this might really be the real end
how�s it hit you when you get that kinda news
man what�d you do

and he said
I went sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named fumanchu
and I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I gave forgiveness I�d been denying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.

He said I was finally the husband
that most the time I wasn�t
and I became a friend a friend would like to have
and all the sudden going fishin
wasn�t such an imposition
and I went three times that year I lost my dad
well I finally read the good book
and I took a good long hard look
at what I�d do if I could do it all again

and then
I went sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named fumanchu
and I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I gave forgiveness I�d been denying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.

Like tomorrow was a gift and you got eternity to think about
what�d you do with it what did you do with it
what did I do with it
what would I do with it?

Sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named fumanchu
and then I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I watched an eagle as it was flying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.
To live like you were dying
To live like you were dying
To live like you were dying
To live like you were dying

So, when are we all going to go skydiving?