Hello,

It has been another one of those weekends.  Today our hearts are very happy and grateful.  Last Thursday when Dean came home from work we noticed that Sharmi’s temperature was starting to go up.  We began monitoring it very carefully because we know that we have to take her to the hospital if it rises above 101 F.  It kept creeping up and up and we were getting scared.  I of-course wanted to avoid taking her to the hospital because thousands of people get sick and died in hospitals every year from infections and we know that her immunity was basically nothing.  Her temperature spiked above 101 and Dean and I agreed to try a cool bath first before we took her in.  We had a special prayer over her and called my parents to pray also.  She didn’t tolerate the bath well because she felt so horrible.  She was trembling when we took her out and her fever spiked to 101.9 F.  We knew we had to go.  We frantically began packing and loading the car with every-ones things, knowing that she would be admitted.  We let her wander around outside in the cool night air and by the time we got her in the car seat her fever had dropped to 99.4 F.  We weren’t sure if this was an answer to prayer or not, but we took her back out of her car seat and took her to bed with us.  We had worship, sang songs, prayed for her of course, all the while taking her temperature over and over again.  Finally, when we were ready for bed, her fever had spiked again and we know we had to go. 

We got to the hospital around 12:30 AM.  Sharmi woke up and called for Papa because she know that we were planning on going to grandma and papa’s for the weekend.  Then she realized where we were (we had told her many times that evening that we had to go to the doctors) and she began to sob.  The good news was that the doctors checked her out and couldn’t find any sign of infection.  They finally admitted us to the oncology ward at 4:30 in the morning.  We were of course very tired. 

Standard protocol is that you have to remain in the hospital for 48 hours for monitoring and to see if her blood cultures any form of infection, so this kept us there until yesterday.  Luckily her fever subsided that night and she didn’t develop an infection of any kind.  However, she still had a very hard weekend.  She was still dealing with the effects of the chemo and the steroids even though they had all be discontinued.  She was in a lot of pain and was taking pain medication about every 4 hours.  I don’t even know how to explain her personality.  She was upset and frustrated constantly.  She was starved, never satisfied, and whinny.  Her grandma and papa came to visit on Friday and I was surprised at how small of an impact that they had her on spirit.  Usually their visits help perk her up. 

The chemo was also causing neuropathy (partial nerve paralysis) in her muscles and in her throat.  She struggled just to sit up or move from one position to another.  The neuropathy of her throat in combination with swollen vocal cords from hydration turned her voice into a raspy whisper.  This was very frustrating for all of us.  She went from communicating with up to 9 word sentences with perfect sentence structure to one word requests that we could not for the life of us understand. 

She wasn’t much better on Saturday, but her Uncle Doug and Aunt Darla came to visit that evening.  She finally perked up a little when we took her out of the room to ride on a little rocket (a little push and ride vehicle).  And we looked at every painting and toy we could find along with way.  We also found an electric train and a padded play area.  She loved the train (not quite as much as her daddy and Doug) and she also played “ring around the rosie” with Doug and her daddy.  It was great to see her smile again.

Yesterday morning she was doing much better from a pain standpoint, but her spirit was still poor.  We told her that were were going to go home and she responded, “no, I can’t go home.”  She seemed to be depressed and afraid.  The only way we got her to agree to leave the hospital bed was when we told her that Rick and Melissa and their dog Rusty were going to come and see us.  (They are very good friends of ours that we hadn’t seen since we left California).  However, once we left the hospital room she began to change.  Her spirit lifted immediately and Dean and I couldn’t believe how happy she was.  She was smiling and laughing and she actually let us play with her and kiss her again.  Once we got home she wandered around the house on her own, she crawled up on the couch to read a book by herself.  She was still saying, “mommy, come sit down,”  but this was a far cry from her standing at my feet in tears saying, “mommy need you.” 

This morning she is also doing quite well.  She was heart broken at first when she woke up and daddy was gone, but after we got through that, she has been doing pretty well.  I was actually able to take a shower.  This is certainly progress.   

In summary, we are grateful that God took care of us through another scary weekend and we are very grateful that we have “our little girl back”.  We are trying to enjoy it while it lasts because we know that she will get pretty sick again in the second part of this phase.  We aren’t sure when this is to begin, because her ANC has to be at 1000 before they will begin.  Thursday night her ANC was 60, Saturday it jumped to 177, and yesterday it plummeted to zero.  We were afraid that they wouldn’t send us home with her immunity being so bad, but thankfully they did and we just have her on three antibiotics.  I have to take her in every 2 days until her ANC gets above 200,  so I will try to let you know how it is tomorrow. 

Hug your kids today.  They are a precious gift.

Cheris