January 31, 2009

Good morning! Sam and I are alone this weekend as Debbie and the girls went to Valemount for a basketball tournament. Last night they won 87 - 29 and they will play two games today and head home this afternoon (4 hour drive). Debbie was getting a little tired of being at home for the past few snowy weeks and this was a great chance to get away and enjoy Kate and Karly 'on the road'.

The junior B team, which I am coaching, goes to the district tournament next weekend while Kate and Karly travel to Williams Lake for the Senior Girls' Seeding Tournament. Then on February 19-21 there is a 12 team zone tournament here in Prince George at UNBC which our school is hosting. The top two teams from this tournament will go on to the Provincial Tournament in Keremeos on March 5-7. High school athletics is a big part of our family life!

We had a big snowfall again this week and the trampoline frame in the backyard is almost completely covered now. That's a lot of snow! Sam is in a waiting period right now for his blood counts to improve so that he can start the next and last phase of his chemotherapy treatment. Maintenance will begin as soon as his ANC increases to .75 or better. This week it was still at a dangerously low 0.2. We were very careful to keep him away from sick people during the last two weeks and so far he has been healthy. He even went snowboarding twice in the evenings at the local city hill.

We are all looking forward to spring now. The other day Sam said, "If I cover my eyes with my hand so that all I can see is sky and trees when I look out the window I can imagine that it is summer and +25 degrees outside and we're going outside to ride bikes again..." I've done the same thing myself.

I went to the doctor 2 weeks ago about a sore on the inside of my ear lobe that didn't seem to be going away. They did a biopsy and it came back positive for Basal Cell Carcinoma - skin cancer. That was a bit of a discouraging day.

This is the most common form of skin cancer (more than 80,000 Canadians each year) and is 100% treatable. They simply remove the damaged tissue and it doesn't come back or spread. You probably know people who have already had this - the more people I talked to this week, the more people said, "Oh I know 'so and so' who had that too". Two thirds of these cases are caused by sun damage to the skin. So I guess all those summers of tree planting are catching up to me now...

I went back to the doctor last Monday and he took more of my ear lobe off which was rather painful actually. I mostly thought of all that Sam had endured over the past 8 months and it put my short amount of discomfort into perspective.

Someone asked me at work last week, "How much more burden can you guys carry as a family anyway?" I thought about that for a couple of days and then read this again in Matthew 11:28

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

We mostly hear in North America, prayers asking God to take away our burdens from us. But the rest of the world's Christians, and especially in the third world perhaps, their prayers are mostly asking God to make their backs stronger to carry the burden which they must bear. Jesus said he'd give us rest if we would come to him when we are weary and burdened. He keeps carrying these burdens for our family and he gives us the grace and strength to carry the portion we must bear.

Have a great weekend. Pray for safety on the roads... winter is a dangerous time in the North...

Ger