Good Morning Team Zachary,

Medical Update:

I am in Omaha today. Zachary was admitted into the hospital this weekend when he started having symptoms of Graft-vs-Host disease. Dehydration from diarrhea, yellow eyes, severe rash with tiny, tiny little blisters, amazing sensitivity to touch ... to be honest with you, when I saw him it took my breath away. He has lost a lot of weight and looks well ... like a cancer patient who has been going through this for a long, long time. One of the first things he told me was that he couldn't even comfortably pick up a tissue without discomfort.

Some Graft-vs-Host disease is good because it means that it is fighting the lymphoma. Of course our son, being the overachiever that he is, has gone a little overboard and needs to be monitored. This is NOT life threatening at this point. It is painful. It is miserable. He looks bad but this is all just part of it. We had the pleasure of seeing Dr. Vose yesterday who said, "yeah, this is to be expected at this stage. It's miserable, isn't it?? This is why we wanted you to stay close to us for monitoring."

And the most surprising thing?? Here he is all rashy and bubbly and feeling yucky and the essence of who he is does not change. And you don't have to look for his amazing charm and positive-ness. I mean his humor and charm and abundance show MORE than his suffering. On my best day I do not equal him on his worst. And for the record, that says something about him not me ...

Ann's update:

I might have mentioned this before but when I told Zachary that his experience would only expand my heart and that I wouldn't feel sorry for him I WOULD HAVE SAID ANYTHING. Come on! How was I to know I'd see him with hundreds of blisters on him! Part of the cosmic joke of all of this is that I hear the words I have told my children come back to me. For instance, 'Integrity is doing what you said you would do especially when it's hard.' 'The character of a person is revealed in adversity.' 'Follow through. Follow through. Follow through.' I am coming to realize that I parented through what I will call 'fortune cookie thinking.' You could put any of those on a fortune cookie!!!

Living in the present moment takes all the courage and will I can muster. I want to get scared but fear lives in the future. I am noticing how much we let 'outrage' steal from us the Now moments. I can get outraged driving the 7 minutes to work in our tiny town. I can leave Zachary's room and get outraged that I have to wait 'so long' for the elevator. I can get mad at the weather. It's raining or snowing or too sunny--it doesn't matter. The lesson that Zachary is teaching me is "Be Here Now." There is no other moment. Yeah, let's put that on a fortune cookie.

My love to you and yours,

Ann