Two miracles

A kiss during the transplant

Over the last three days, Beth’s white blood cell count has gone from zero, where it had essentially been for the first week after the transplant, to 0.10, to 0.29, to 1.13. What that shows us is that the donor’s tissues have begun the process of engraftment. The first sign of engraftment is the production of white blood cells.

This is wonderful news for us, because since almost immediately after the transplant, she has been fighting a series of infections, which come and go frequently, leading to high fevers (up to 104.8), chills, and severe rigors (shaking). These became extremely painful for her, to the point that they have been giving her morphine for the pain and Demerol for the shaking.

But that she has her own immunity system kicking in means she’s past this phase of the treatment, at least. We still have “graft-vs-host” symptoms (rejection of her own tissues by the new) to look forward to, but for now, this is a minor miracle and a major milestone for us.

What’s more significant is that I’ve had a chance to watch her grow to accept the Gospel of grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, to God alone be the glory. My pastor, Matt Koerber, has been a regular visitor to our hospital room, and Beth delights to talk with him, and hear about how Christ’s atoning death and resurrection have forgiven all of her sins, and enabled her to stand before the Throne of Grace – today – clothed in Christ’s righteousness.

She won’t be home for Christmas, and we all will be shuffling ourselves around this weekend. The kids will be coming to the hospital today for a few hours, then we’ll head out to my mom’s house to visit with my brother and sister and all the cousins. At home, we’ve got a huge pile of gifts from my daughter’s elementary school and various other folks we don’t even know. Beth and I will share Christmas in the hospital – maybe some of the older kids will come to visit, but we’ll largely have some good quality time together.

I want to thank all of you who have stood by us this year – with prayers, gifts, friendship, and the many other ways you have all come into our lives. Merry Christmas to you and yours.