4 am

4 am again. Officially we have now been away from our home for 1 month. Both of us are pretty home sick. Jake plays his Indy video daily and looks at his photo album while communicating primarily on My Space. For some reason he is not much of a Skyper. I continue to surprise people with calls to their cel phones using my Skype account. For $6 a month I have a San Diego number which makes it free for me to call. Callers on the other end see it only as a San Diego call. It is fun hearing their surprise when they get a call from India. This morning as I woke up and began thinking too much again. I went again to my computer to check my email. I was surprised and delighted to get an email from my niece Ariela's friend Sashe' about a company called Beckstrand that will be sending a gift basket with restaurant cards to Jake. The hope is that when Jake gets home he will have had good results and he can stay off chemo and be able to start making up for the 2 years of not being able to be a teenager by reconnecting with his friends. The cards will help him be able to go out and get a bite to eat with friends from time to time.
We received a plant from the hotel today which was also a nice surprise. All over and around us people continue to be generous with their time and involvement in this journey. It is especially nice to see how the world has gotten together for Jake from people that are in his family to friends and people we do not even know. Talking to Jake at the buffet yesterday, we discussed how we had now been away for a month and hopefully will be away for another. Jake said "Yeah, I am getting pretty sick of this Cancer thing." Then he added, "But I have gotten a lot closer with a lot of people." The generosity of all involved has helped indirectly to extend Jakes network of emotional support. I know he feels good as do I that people from here and the West are so very supportive. It is like a big hand helping hold us up and a strong motivator to keep on going. Going through this alone would be much much harder but even this far from the states we never really feel alone. Thanks again to all for that.