Platelets. Cody. Photo Walk.

I’ve just been sitting here thinking ahead to Thanksgiving week and the happy (maybe even occasionally chaotic) busyness that will be entering our lives.

On Sunday my brother, his wife, and son will arrive from Minnesota.  They are making a road trip to visit a few of their southern relatives and we are delighted to be included on their itinerary. Tim, Berit, and Andrew are some of our favorite people to hang out with and we are looking forward to showing them our little piece of paradise at the edge of the sea.

After they leave, Steve’s parents will arrive for a couple days and of course, we always love seeing them. Their visit will overlap with our hosting of the Dare Challenge guys for Thanksgiving Dinner, which will be a grand and wonderful adventure.

If you happen to a new reader of Smithellaneous, the links to the posts from the last two times we hosted the guys are here and here  (I just reread each of them and they touched my heart all over again.)

Here is an excerpt from one of the posts that explains part of the reason why I love to host this event with Steve.

Since I didn’t have my own son to cook for this Thanksgiving, this was my year to pay it forward, to pay it back, to pay it in whatever direction I could find.  In short, this was my Thanksgiving to cook for another mother’s Nathan, in the hopes that when she heard the story of where her son had spent Thanksgiving, she would feel her load lighten a little and she could breathe a prayer of thanks that the son she loved so much had received the love she wasn’t able to give in person.

There all sorts of reasons that mothers sat at Thanksgiving tables this year without the presence of the children they loved.  Some kids have faraway jobs, some have insufficient finances to travel, some have no time off work, some are away in the military, and some might even possibly be in a drug and alcohol rehab center.  And since I’m a long time member of the cancer community, I also know that some of the seats at Thanksgiving tables were empty this year because of the saddest reason of all–a son or daughter didn’t survive their battle with cancer.

There are so very many reasons that people we love go missing from our holiday tables.  And that gives us so many more reasons to show acceptance and love to the people we have nearby.  Because somewhere, they are being missed.  Somewhere, another mother’s Nathan is wishing that her child could be home.

Cody’s Challenge

And speaking of Dare Challenge, thanks so very much to those of you who commented on this post saying that you would be donating to to Cody’s Challenge. (I’ve also gotten emails from people who are donating.)

I just wanted to add that if you prefer to give online instead of write a check, you can do that here.  Scroll halfway down the page to the Donate button; after logging into Paypal, just click on “Special instructions to the seller” and type in Cody’s Challenge.)

Platelets

I haven’t mentioned much about my last visit to the Rheumatologist so let me bring you up to speed briefly. My doctor put me back on low dose steroids, increased my infusion of Remicade and also increased one of my oral medications (Methotrexate). I ended up having a really, really bad time of it last week but thankfully I’m feeling a whole lot better now.

The doctor’s biggest concern  is that my platelet count has been steadily dropping over the past four months and is now down to 122.  (Normal is 150-400)  Because of that ongoing decline, he wants me to have blood work done in a couple of days to see if the  trend is continuing. I’m not sure what will need to be done if they keep going down; there seems to be something going on with my bone marrow. I’m just going to do my best not to worry about it and concentrate instead on the wonderful holiday that is approaching.

Photo Walk

Lastly, the best solution for me when I’m tired, down, or stressed is often to take a photo walk– to just grab my camera and wander off somewhere.  Last Saturday was such a balmy and beautiful evening that I left a note for Steve and Sarah telling them that I was going out to chase the golden hour.

Ahhh.  Few things more therapeutic than this . . .

 I even had some extra fun doing some edits to this one . . .I love photo walks and photo therapy!