It is steroid week again. If you would have asked me prior to Sharmi’s cancer which one was worse steroids or chemo? I would have confidently said chemo. However, now that I have had 9 months of experience, steroids are definitely worse! It took me 10 hours today (rushing) to pack up the kids for three days at Grandma’s house. I usually over pack to get in all of the cute cloths, but this time I only packed the basics. But taking care of two kids, competing for my attention, and Sharmi’s extreme neediness resulted in a very long day of packing. Dean is out of town for the week and so the girls and I have come to Grandma and Papa’s house so that they can help me manage the attitude and food cravings. It helps to keep her spirit happy. It also helps protect sister. When Sharmi is on steroids she gets jealous of Chantel when I hold her and Sharmi swats at her. Poor Chantel, she will be one tough kid after surviving through Sharmi.

Sharmi’s labs last week were “good.” This means they are at the desired low for leukemia patients. Her anc was 1300. Their target is to keep them between 1000 and 1500 during maintenance. (Normal for healthy people is 1500 to 5000.)

This week we saw Sharmi’s actual doctor. I really love her! I asked her three times about whether they would really be able to catch it if Sharmi started to relapse. I explained why I was so distrusting since it took 6 months to diagnose it in the begining. She was very patient and real about it. I was concerned because, two nights before her appointment Sharmi woke up in the middle of the night crying out, “pain meds, pain meds.” Once the pain meds began to work she was able to tell me that her legs were hurting. Dr Thompson said that it may just be growing pains. I hope she is right.

Chantel is trying to help me type, so I better go before I drop my parents lap top on the ground.  I hope you all have a good week.

Cheris

Hello

Sharmi had another great weekend.  Her uncle Chris and aunt Julie came up and did a late Christmas with us.  Sharmi had a blast with her new play doh and she got a doll house from Dean and I.  She put the people and animals from grandma’s “national park” set in her house.  The bear took a nice long bath in her tub.

Sharmi is feeling pretty good.  Last week her fever spiked a couple of times for no apparent reason, but then it came right back down.  We have another doctors appointment and chemo on Wednesday. I am interested to see what has happened to her blood counts since we have added the additional chemo back into her weekly home regimen.

Chantel is doing really well.  She is such a joy.  She is getting more interested in life now.  She loves to sit up and play and she rolled over last week  She is almost 18 pounds already, so I am getting anxious for her to get mobile.  It gets exhausting carrying 50 pounds around with one kid on each hip.

Well,  I need to focus all of my positive energy on the Chargers for the second half of the game.  I am afraid it won’t help, but I’ll try. 

Cheris

Hi Everyone,

I hope the new year is starting out well for all of you.  I can’t believe that we are half way through January all ready.  I am finally starting to surface after all of the holiday bustle, except “Christmas” is still up at our house.  We haven’t had time to take it down yet.

Sharmi  is doing pretty good right now.  She made it through her last series of steroids fairly well.  It was over the holidays so she had all of her family around to feed her, carry her, and meet her every need.  I am learning that to minimize her neediness during and after steroids, we need to be even more attentive to her when she isn’t feeling well.  If we don’t, the side effects and attitude will take much longer to go away. 

We had Sharmi’s labs checked last week and her blood counts are coming up, so they started her back on methotrexate orally on Mondays.  This helps to keep her blood at the desired level.  She has been saying these last few days that she is sick.  However, I don’t know if this is because of the medication or because she is trying to get what she wants.    She is full blown in her “terrible two’s” and she thinks that she is the boss and gets to control everyone.  It is not uncommon to hear her say, “You are not the boss, I am the boss.”  She is consequently having a lot of “time-outs” in her room.  I am exhausted by training her strong will ever day, but when I think about her having cancer I glad she has that strength.  I just wish she would focus her energy on trying to beat the cancer instead of trying to break her mothers authority. 

Sharmi is learning some hard lessons about people.  There are some amazing people out there.  There some that are so incredibly generous that you know they are filled with God and then there are some that are so incredibly rude that you can’t believe they have made it to such an old age without life teaching them some wisdom. 

I’ll start with the RUDE one.  Last week we were at Chantel’s doctors office. After her shots I feed her in the lobby while Sharmi colored at a kids table.  When I was finished I went over to sit with Sharmi to give her some focused time.  We had been coloring for awhile when an old lady, who had been watching Sharmi, came up to her and said.  “What is that thing in your mouth?”  Sharmi and I both turned and looked at her.  Sharmi looked up in fear, and I looked up with a challenging glare, that only a mother bear can give when she was angry.  I was hopeful that she would get the hint and stop.  However she continued, “What is that UGLY thing in your mouth? Is that a pacifier?” Then she turned to me and said, “Isn’t she too old for a pacifier?”  I finally found my tongue and with a trembling voice (trying to control my anger) I told her that my daughter had cancer and she could use pacifier as long I she would like.  I also told her that she should keep her opinions to herself since she has no idea what is going on in other peoples lives.  I kept my cool and I was very respectful.  (The human part of me wishes I had layed her low).  As I quickly gathered things up to leave, she tried to be very nice and pretend that she cared about how Sharmi was doing.  She then revealed her full stupidity by stating, (I believe in an attempt to insult my emotion) “This is harder on you then it is on her.”  I looked her in the eye and correct her by saying, “This is VERY hard on her!”  We quickly left and I was steaming for hours.  How can someone get to be a senior citizen and not have learned that they shouldn’t judge other people, because there may be circumstances that one does not understand. 

In contrast, I have to tell you about an incredible women that I met several months ago.  It was during delayed intensification when I had to take Sharmi to the hospital 5 days a week for two weeks.  Chantel was due in just a few weeks and I was very fat.  I had gotten to the point where I couldn’t fit into my maternity cloths anymore so I struggled to find things in my regular cloths that were comfortable.  This particular morning I had given up and put on a sun dress.  It was a short skirt when I was size 4, so it didn’t look very pretty on a 9 month pregnant mother. But it was the 10th day of going to the hospital and I just had to put something on.  On the drive down I was talking to Rick on the phone and told him that I looked like ”white trash” more specifically ”Erin Brockovich.”  On the way home I stopped at a grocery store that I had never been to.  It wasn’t until I was at the check out counter with my food rung up that I realized that they didn’t take credit.  In California taco stands even take credit card.  I have never use my debit card so I didn’t know my password.  Dean was out of town and I called him, but he didn’t have any ideas.  I wanted to just leave everything, go home, and forget about it, but we desperately needed some groceries and I didn’t want to have wasted all of that time.  So, I decided that I would leave my groceries in a cart and I would have to drive home, get the check book and drive back to pay for my groceries.  This was the last thing that I wanted to do.  I was worn out beyond belief both physically and emotionally.  I was bagging up my groceries to put them in the cart, when the lady who was behind me in line and who had her groceries on the other belt walked up to me and handed me my receipt and simply said, ”You are taken care of.”  I was shocked and embarrassed, but I was incredibly grateful.  I couldn’t comprehend a complete stranger that would buy over $70 worth of groceries for a complete stranger, especially one that looked like me.  I am convinced that God sent her to be there for me that day.  She was a busy mother of 3 boys, who I am sure had many things on her mind, but she was open to God’s guidance to be my miracle angel that day.   It as been experiences like these the keep reminding me that God really is here and he is watching out for us.  He certainly isn’t making all of the struggles go away, but we see his active presence enough to know that he is still with us and that we can trust in him.  I am so grateful for all of you who have taken time to share a little bit of Gods love with us.

Good night and God Bless.

Cheris