Hello everyone.

We have such fine friends. Thank you all so much. Thank you also, to those who don’t even know us. We take so much fortification from everyone’s support and shared stories.

I made a wish of my deepest depths Tuesday night, my last night at home for quite some time. The sand tickled my skin along my arms and neck, sifted through my hair and crunched under my heels. It seemed to cradle my entire body as I lay prostrate in my pyjamas, in our riding arena, looking up into the brilliant stars above. I tried desperately to tap into my emotions. The longer I lock them up to enable basic functioning, the harder it seems to break them free for processing. I understand my body’s need to process and purge my daily feelings in order to better cope with the next day’s load. The stress does bad things to me, if left to build up. The stars seemed to sing out their formations above. I only recognised one constellation in this view. It means nothing to me. From the edge of my vision, I caught the tail of a shooting star as it disappeared over the tree tops surrounding my chosen theatre. Hope leapt through me before I could stop it. While I want nothing more for things to turn out for the best and work hard all day to believe, at night I am forced to admit I so badly don’t want to live through the devastation of the alternative. I’ve tried time and again to get a read on this major life development. I’ve often been able to do that, sense how things will go. Either I’m too close to feel true things, or this one will just elude me as they sometimes do. The desolate silence of my late-night environment gently crept into every pore and escorted all of my negative feelings out, down into the cool, waiting sand. My pulse slowed to the rhythm of the soft crunching and blowing of our two horses, not 30 feet behind me in their pasture. I let everything wander from my mind, out into the impossibly still night. And then I asked. I begged. I poured everything I had into the most obvious question of my heart. Just as I did that, a chubby, brilliant star marched boldly across the middle of the sky. That I could not ignore. I carefully placed my kernel of hope in such a cheerful omen.

I am not a person of religion. I appreciate spirituality and whatever that means to all people, however they need to define it. My husband prays and I find comfort in that. I have a vague understanding of energy and how my own impacts my surroundings, especially when it comes to animals. I don’t want to look too closely at that, instinctively knowing my Type-A tendencies will ruin my more intuitive self-lessons by trying to cram this understanding into a tidy little box, alphabetised on a tidy little shelf. I prefer to go by feel. However, please know that we are receptive to and grateful for every effort on every level when it comes to our precious little man.

Now down to business. I do understand the PICC Line is a wonderful and necessary machination. I accept that his life in hospital will be better for it. I will, as always, push my reflexive emotions about yet another “abnormal” condition aside and appreciate the results, especially considering his ever-collapsing veins. As I write right now, Kaleb is being prepped for the surgery to install these lines. A spinal tap and skin biopsy will also take place while he’s under anaesthetic. The tap is to administer chemo directly to the fluid in his spine and brain, a somewhat separate system from the rest of his blood flow. The biopsy is to establish that there are no cancer cells activated on that level, as well.

I will log in tomorrow, as I’m sure we’ll have some more news about how things went and continue to roll.