50,000 Platelets

When Chet was first diagnosed at 2.5 years old, I took all of the photos, paperwork, memorabilia, news clippings, wish trip stuff...everything relating to the disease and treatments, and put it away until I could emotionally deal with scrapping it. Two years ago I pulled all of that out and made a huge album with all of those materials. I made the colossal mistake of submitting it to the Make It Meaningful contest...never again will I enter a contest with work that is so emotionally raw for me. Then I put the album on the shelf and I almost never look at it. To this day it is the only project I have worked on that Jack has never read. I am sure it means something that this is the first time I have ever just scrapped a random page about Chet's aplastic anemia, but I prefer to not delve into that particular pool of psychological pondering tonight... LOL

Journaling reads:We were both so nervous when we got to the doctor’s office last week. You were a bit afraid of the needle they needed to use to draw blood, and my stomach was in knots from worrying about what the numbers would be.
Seeing your counts come back always reminds me that everything in life is a matter of perspective. If your brother only had 50,000 platelets it would be a major cause for concern, but when you have that many we breathe a sigh of relief and smile knowing that they haven’t plunged again. They are down a little from last time, and your white cells and red cells have fallen under the low end of the normal range again, but we have been here before and we know what to do. Healthy habits, good nutrition, extra vitamins, and lots of rest for you, and a whole lot of
reminding myself to breathe until the next round of counts. Let’s hope that by then the reds and whites are back in the normal range, and the platelets have gone back up to 60K. I know it wasn’t easy for you, but I am so proud of how brave you were when they stuck you. Be well, Chet, that is all you need to focus on...being well. I love you.

I used 7 Gypsies paper (red), Rusty Pickle paper (measuring tapes), Sandylion paper, (I think it is really part of a Disney line, but it looks like blood cells to me), Chatterbox photo corners, 7 Gypsies arrow turns, Creative Imaginations embossed stickers (50,000), SEI stickers (platelets), KI Icicle, and I can't remember who makes the Awesome Kid tag. I also included the results of Chet's counts from last week, and the arrows are specifically pointing to the platelet levels. There is probably a little glare from the transparency I journaled on.

TFL!