UPDATED: Maggie Byrd update, ‘O Happy Day’

Sleep deprivation right after finding out that Maggie Byrd has lymphoma made me especially vulnerable to getting overshadowed by fear and sadness and I forgot some important things:

1. What you put your attention on grows stronger.
2. You are alive until you are dead.
3. While you are alive, make the effort — see #1 above — to be happy, cheerful, optimistic, filled with faith and praise, forgiving and grateful.
4. In light of #3 above, play cheerful music, be playful, dance, tell jokes and express your love.

So it occurred to me that Maggie is alive, she got to see her photo here last night and was tickled silly, and I am so far away that these posts are something I can do to cheer her up and let her know she is loved. Since Maggie might get to listen to the music I’m posting, I will be choosing happy songs instead of country music and hymns that would be likely to make her cry.

Dear gentle readers, I am taking you along with me on this journey.

The injection Maggie got yesterday was heparin, a blood thinner, and last night she began to vomit blood. She went to the local hospital by ambulance around 6 am. They are transferring her back to the University of Kentucky Hospital in Lexington soon. I got to talk to her just now for a couple of minutes. She sounded woozy but cheerful.

Yes, things look grim, but you would be amazed at how many seemingly hopeless situations you can get through victoriously with those four rules above.

Update, 9/3/2010, Fri.: The endoscopy showed a lot of erosions in Maggie’s esophagus and duodenum but the doctor couldn’t tell whether they were caused by the cancer or the chemo. They can’t do anything to treat the erosions because the blood thinner means her blood wouldn’t clot and the chemo has lowered her ability to fight infection. Family members are staying with her tonight and she’s waiting for a bed so she can be admitted to the hospital.