This is Carmen, a few aunts and cousins, and me at the American Girl Store. I am so glad that we had this opportunity together. These pictures are hard to see on the blog, but you can see how radiant her smile is. She was smiling like this the whole time we were in the store.
Reed and I have decided, after much prayer (including yours, thank you) that we will keep Carmen home and not give her any more treatments. You can imagine the heartbreak we feel at recognizing this, but Reed and I both believe in not mourning until we have truly lost her. You cannot imagine how lucky we feel to have been blessed with this amazing girl. We feel lucky that we have been given time to know that her life will be short, and we can spend a lot of time with her before we say, "see you in heaven". We will not let other things get in the way of spending time with her. "It is better to love and have lost than to never have loved at all."
This week has been very hard on us. Carmen spent all of Thursday crying, and sometimes screaming from pain. She seems to be more comfortable now. She has lost a lot of her energy, though and does not talk, smile and joke as much, but every once in a while she'll still throw a joke out there. We should be having nurses coming in this week to help us care for her. So my plan now is to sit and spend as much time with her as possible. Many of you have asked how you can help. If you would like to help, anything that would allow us to spend more time with our daughter would be great. Frozen dinners have helped us a ton, thank you! Sometimes I have to go out, so if you would like to come and spend time with Carmen while I go and get some stuff done, that would be great too. Your donations have helped us more than you will ever know. Thank you for your generosity. The fresh fruit that was given to us was wonderful. Ecowater, and those that helped with that has been great. I no longer get a stomachache when I drink water, and I don't have to worry about Carmen getting one either. Thank you for the books you have loaned or given to Carmen. She reads about 2- 5 chapter books a day, along with several picture books, so we do run out of material sometimes. Carmen also loves the craft stuff! This is harder for her to do now, but she still does it about every other day. She has requested a trip to Michael's tomorrow. Hopefully we can make it! Thank you for all of your notes. Carmen enjoys reading them. Visitors are always welcome. We are not sure how much time Carmen has left. It seems like every day some new disturbing thing comes up. Carmen may not always look like she is enjoying company, but she does. She is just very uncomfortable. Your prayers continue to strengthen and guide us, thank you for those.