Christmas things

BOX SCORE
Element	Current	Std. Range	Trend
Hemoglobin	12.3	13-17	^
Platelets	83	140-375	v
ANC	2610	1800-8300	^

There are lots of Christmas songs that talk about the wonderful feelings most of us share during the Christmas season, which by the way is closer than we think! Many of the songs lament that we don't keep that Christmas joy throughout the rest of the year. If you want to get really cynical, a satirical song writer named Tom Lehrer offers his song, "A Christmas Carol," which includes the following verse:

On Christmas Day you can't get sore
Your fellow man you must adore
There's time to rob him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four

Why is it that we don't keep that Christmas spirit year round? We make excuses like, "I'm so busy I don't have time to enjoy frivolity." Or, "That's all just fairy tale stuff. It's not real." But when you think about it, those excuses don't hold water, do they? If you have time for those things at Christmas, why not the rest of the year? 

I have a recording by Ella Fitzgerald, the queen of scat, of a song written in 1959 by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy van Heusen, titled "The Secret of Christmas." It includes these lyrics:

It's not the glow you feel when snow appears
It's not the Christmas card you've sent for years
Not the joyful sound when sleigh bells ring 
Or the merry songs children sing

Yeah, the little gift you send on Christmas day
Will not bring back the friend you turned away
So may I suggest the secret of Christmas? 
It's not the things you do at Christmas time
But the Christmas things you do all year through.

I believe a corollary to the secret in this song, is that, in addition to doing "Christmas things" all year through, we need to look for Christmas things all year through. Here's an example. This week is chemo week for me. Every cycle I meet with either my oncologist or her nurse practitioner, Michelle, during the week before to review my progress. I had such a meeting last Friday. Michelle was reviewing my medications and learned that I have been taking an antibiotic and an anti-fungal medication religiously every day. She said that the protocol only requires me to take them when my ANC falls below 1000. I said I didn't remember being told this before, but what a blessing it would be to take fewer meds with their attendant side effects. She told me to continue until she could verify with Dr. Brow that there is not some reason for me not to follow that protocol. 

Today, Michelle sent me an email confirming that I don't need to take those medications, unless my ANC falls below 1000, at which point my immunity is low enough to require them to protect me from infections. There was a time in my life when I might have become furious that I had been taking these meds continuously when I didn't need to, blaming someone else for the fact that I was ignorant of the protocol. 

If any good comes from AML, in my case it is this: my journey has drawn me closer to God, who sent His only Son to bear the burden of my guilt for all the evil I have done in my lifetime and to exchange it for His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). In the face of such a gift, I am learning to see the positive in circumstances and focus on that, instead of something that, in my little pea brain, I consider to be a negative. I am beginning to see the Christmas things I can do all year for others and to appreciate the Christmas things that others do for me all year through. 

Being able to reduce my intake of medications, with their attendant side effects, is a Christmas thing. I feel as if I have been given a wonderful gift, as good as any I ever found under a beautiful Christmas tree. So, I would like to thank Michelle for catching my misunderstanding and Dr. Brow for confirming that I can be free of some medications that have caused me a certain amount of pain. 

What Christmas thing might you do today? What "Christmas" gift have you received that you need to acknowledge? If you look for them, I know you will find them.