Our New Favorite Number

Lamentations 3:22-23
"Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."

Everyone has a favorite number. For years, mine was 44. My favorite baseball player and overall athlete, Hank Aaron, wore number 44. I also liked Jerry West in the NBA, even though I'm a long-time Knicks fan. And there are plenty of great NFL players who wore number 44, including my favorite player growing up, Donnie Anderson.

But I think my new favorite number is 35. Let me explain. Today is Day 35 in Tammy's post-transplant recovery. And while it just sounds like a number, some big things happened today that were much more delayed the first time through.

First of all, Tammy is now on a twice-a-week clinic visit schedule. We're not sure exactly when that happened last time, but we both think it was around Day 60. But she's now scheduled for Mondays and Thursdays only.

The nurse practitioner who saw her today commented on how good she looked. She asked Tammy if she liked sitting on the front porch and Tammy replied that she loved to sit on our front deck. We remember how much she looked forward to that and how great it was when she finally was released to do that...on Day 100! Abby said that as long as no one was mowing and the sun wasn't directly on her, she could sit on the front porch.

Now hold on. As they say on TV, "But wait, there's more!" It was on David Lee's birthday in 2009, four days after her SIXTH MONTH birthday, that Tammy got her pic line removed. The pic line is the three-prong IV line that they use to draw blood and give her fluids. Well, today, Abby told her that she wouldn't need fluids that much and the pic line really wasn't necessary. So they took it out!

Tammy is still not out of the woods. She's to the point where 50 percent of the people who make it this far survive. But as a friend of mine said today, her attitude has made such a huge difference to this point, we are very confident that she will continue to improve. We ask for your continued prayers as we travel this long, arduous road. We'll keep praying for you too.