Change of Plans

     Lately our plans have changed on short notice. Last Friday we were looking forward to having Val and his new wife at church with us.  Well, Vals still came but some of our family headed out to Omaha an hour after finding out that our little grandson was being admitted to Children's Hospital with a dangerously low platelet count. A friend commented that life can turn on a dime.
     It is when someone loses health for unknown reasons that we notice that it is a gift. One day Myles was in obvious good health and the next he began to develop bruises all over his body.  He is a year old toddler and we expect a few bruises but not twenty new ones in a day. And when his mom, Jenny and I individually researched it on line we found that leukemia is known to show up with bruises. Now THAT was scary to us. (Sometimes I wonder if some of us would be better off without the Internet.) But we did realize that getting him in to be seen by a doctor would be a good thing.
      Your platelet count is around 150,000 in numbers.  Myles was at 12,000 at first check. In a few hours it had dropped to 5,000 which is well within the range that bleeding can begin spontaneously. At Children's they soon had him on an IV treatment for a condition called ITP.  The doctors were very cautious about telling us this was not a leukemia at first, but eventually as the treatment worked they were happy to assure us that they had no reason to believe that it was.  By Sunday while everyone else at Grace Bible church was enjoying hearing from Val and Barb we were already leaving Omaha since our recovering grandson was soon to be released from the hospital with his relieved parents.
       At the same time we have all been looking forward to having the family home this coming weekend. (Dru's are home from Thailand just now.) But again our plans were changed. Someone else was booked at the house we were planning to use for the weekend.  So we are all practicing flexibility in planning, again. I hope we learn to gracefully "roll with the punches" quickly, because I am ready for some steady-as-we-go planning and living now for awhile.
       I reminded Jenny today that God knew all along about these things so we can trust Him with our plans anytime. We hope to have everybody together at Old Chicago Club in two weeks now. We'll see what really takes place, won't we?