Good Afternoon Everyone,

This week has had some highs and lows.  I noticed Sharmi was limping last Sunday when we were shopping at Costco.  I successfully dismissed the worry until Wednesday.  Wednesday morning my parents drove over in the morning and came to Sharmi’s gymnastic class.  Everyone had a wonderful time!  Sharmi has become very strong.  She can do the rope swing by herself now, she can hang from the bar and bend her legs up and touch the bar with her feet and of course her favorite is the giant trampoline.  It was a small class that day so we got Grandma and Grandpa and sissy up on the trampoline with us as well.  It was a blast.  Sharmi also made sure that sissy got her turn at all of the slides and she faithfully stood at the bottom to catch her.  Grandma and Grandpa were very impressed and a good time was had by all. 

That afternoon, we drove up to Bellingham to see her Aunt Darla, Uncle Doug and her cousin Crystal.  We had a picnic by their pond and feed the ducks and geese.  They were very hungry birds and Sharmi was even able to feed them out of her hand.  After lunch they took us to “Build-A-Bear” in the mall.   For those of you who don’t know it is a place where you pick an un-stuffed animal, you watch them fill it with stuffing, you kiss a soft cloth heart and put it in their chest before they sew it up, and then you dress them.  It is important for animals to be fashionable too now.  :)  When we first got there we spent about ten minutes trying to get Sharmi to pick an animal.  There were lots of bears and there were also bunnies, cats, dogs, monkeys, frogs, etc.  Finally someone suggested that I pick one for her and so, I encourage her again to pick one. She walked back over to the animals and very decidedlypicked up a teddy bear named Champ hugged it and said, “I want this one.”  We picked a bunny for Chantel and went to the stuffing station.  Sharmi handed the gentleman her bear, he said, “Oh, you picked Champ.  He is my favorite too.  Champ is a very special bear.”  We asked why, but before he answered I knew what he was going to say.  He responded, “Champ is special because when you buy Champ some of the money goes to the kids who are fighting childhood leukemia and cancers. They do this in honor of a little girl who died.”  We then told him that she had leukemia.  He responded, “Wow, this really is a special bear.  Then I think that all of you need to pick a heart, kiss it and put it in her bear.”  It was a very special moment for all of us.

The down side to that day was that when we were walking in the mall, we notice that she had a significant limp again.  It was the exact same limp that started almost two years ago and ultimately was diagnosed as leukemia.  After her fun filled day and meeting her new best friend Crystal, we headed home.  Ten minutes down the freeway she started screaming at the top of her lungs, “I’m tired, I’m tired, I’m tired, I’m tired…. ”  It was different than her normal exhaustion and attitude.  I pulled that car over to the side of the road to just calm her down.  By the time I got both of them in bed that night I had convinced myself that both of them had cancer.  Sharmi is fighting yeast infections again which she had “pre”cancer as well. And Chantel was had been crying out it pain, which was getting more and more common.  That night I just sat in a dark empty room and cried, begging that God wouldn’t make us go through it again. 

Since then, Chantel is acting more normal so I think she is fine, and I am trying to tell myself that Sharmi is fine and that she has just injured her weak knee.  However, the knee is steadily getting worse.  It took several days of me asking Sharmi about her limp before she would finally talk about it.  I would try to simply ask her if she was hurting anywhere and she would either ignore me or she would say, “I don’t want to talk about it.”  Finally after the pain was bad enough that she couldn’t ignore it she told me with a smile on her face,  “I hurt because you remember the other day when my throat hurt and I ate grapefruit and it hurt my mouth..that is where I hurt.”  I told her that she knew she was being silly and I asked her where it really hurt and she pointed to her left knee,  exactly where it hurt her before.  I have placed a call to the clinic and I am still waiting for a return call, but I am praying that is it just an injury and I am afraid to take her in.  In summary, we could all use your prayers.

To end on a couple of fun bits.  Sharmi has taken reading to a new level for a three year old.  She is now playing, “seek and find” with words.  When I read her a story that has a repetitive word on every page like ”baby” she tries to find the word.  She told Grandma on the phone the other day,  ”I can find baby, I look for the one with the tail.”  Chantel also is enjoying reading.  She enjoys turning the page when it is time.  She is only patient for a couple of books, but it is fun reading to her while it lasts. 

Afternoon has become evening, so goodnight to you all.  Love and prayers to you and your families,

Cheris 

At this very moment Sharmi is sitting on her Daddy’s lap showing him pictures of her withWinnie the Pooh at Disney Land.  The Pooh characters were clearly her favorites with Cinderella coming in as a close second.  We had a good time, but is was very hot and Sharmi was completely drained of energy.  She was on steroids and she was scared of half of the rides we went on.  I wasn’t sure whether she was having a good time or not, but she enjoys talking about it now so it must have been a little bit fun.  One wonderful blessing is that when we told customer relations about Sharmi’s health they gave us a card that allowed us to go up the exits.  This made a significant difference in the day.  Sharmi was wiped out as is was,  it would have nearly killed her to stand in line all day.

The reason we went to California was to celebrate Dean’s sister and bother-in-laws surprise 25th wedding anniversary.  It was lovely and we enjoyed catching up with Dean’s family again.

Chantel became very efficient at crawling while we were at Whistler, so when I was packing for our California trip I would look down and she would be gone.  Her favorite things are the cat food, cat water, and a 7 foot artificial ficus tree that she has pulled over on herself three times.  If she can get outside she likes taking the dirt out of the tomato and basil pots.  Chantel has also fallen in love with drawing.  She  doesn’t care if it is a pen, crayon, pencil or doodle pen.  She loves drawing.  Friday she found a purple crayon and drew a picture on Sharmi’s step stool and on the white door frame in the girls bathroom.  As if I didn’t have enough messes to clean up.  :) 

With two vacations, company, vacation bible school and the effects of chemo and steroids Sharmi has been very short on sleep for the last several weeks.  She is very tired and emotionallyfragile.  My goal for the next month is to do nothing and to get them on a good sleep schedule again.  I miss the old days when I could just sing ”Jesus Loves Me” to Sharmi and put her in her crib, and then without a whimper she was off to sleep.  The day after her methotrexate this past week I spent 4 a full hours trying to get Sharmi to fall asleep.  Two hours in the afternoon trying to juggle Chantel and Sharmi, ultimatelyonly resulting in a 1/2 hour nap.  And then from 9:30 to 11:30 in the evening.  This was after Dean layed with her for a half hour and not starting the process until we hoped she was tired enough to go to sleep.  This is a huge challenge in out lives.

I hope you all had a good Sabbath.  I hope all is well with you and your family.

Love Cheris    

Happy Sabbath

Sometimes I think that vacations with children is a misnomer. We have been in Whistler Canada all week. We are having a nice time, but we are very tired. Chantel does not sleep well away from home. She does fine with the activity throughout the days, but at night she is restless and insecure and wants the security and comfort from mommy all night. Waking up every 15 minutes is not unusual for her.

When we got here last Sunday it was extremely hot. I think it was close to 100 degrees. It continued to be hot through Wednesday and we went to the pool everyday. The resort has a water slide that Sharmi has loved. She has gone down it a couple of times by herself but the rest of the time she has wanted Mommy or Daddy to go with her. We have also gone down it with Mommy and the two girls, which took talent to throw Sharmi to Daddy at the bottom in time so that I could hold sister up out of the water. A couple times I wasn’t balanced or coordinated enough and one of the girls went under. They both have been great sports though. The last trip to the pool Sharmi decided that all four of us should go together. There are advantages to not being in the united states. They would never let us all pile up like that in the states. Our first day at the pool Dean asked Sharmi if she was has having a fun time, as they were waiting their turn at the top of the water-slide, Sharmi said, “Uh huh, I think am going to remember Whistler for a long long time.” It is those memories that make sleepless vacations worth it!

It has been much cooler the last couple of days and today it is raining. I have been reminded to be careful what I wish for. We are hoping it clears up a little this afternoon, or we may just embrace the wet and go swimming anyways. We were hoping to take a gondola ride to the top of the mountain but today we would only see a carpet of white clouds.

Sharmi’s health has been OK. I worry about her a little bit though because she has these phantom fevers that come and go out of nowhere. Yesterday while Sharmi was eating dinner I touched her head and she was running a low grade fever. I forgot the thermometer but I think it got to about 99.9 (I am getting pretty good at guessing.) However when I tucked her in bed her head was cool again. It makes me a little nervous that she keeps getting them, but I am of course grateful that they stay low.  She has her next doctors appointment on Tuesday and so that means we get more chemo and we start the steroids again.  We always dread that necessary evil.  And we will be traveling again this weekend, via plane, and I fully expect it to be miserable.  It is kind of hard to make egg noodles on the plane. 

I am continually amazed at Sharmi. Last night we were eating sloppy joe’s made with alphabet soup and when she finds a letter she says, “What’s this letter,… for what? And Dean and I try to think of everything that starts with that letter. Last night Dean was putting Chantel to bed and we found the letter “T” I had listed off turtle, tortoise, tongue, teeth, and then Sharmi said, “T for try and T for tent.” I was pretty amazed. These are not your typical children’s T words.

Chantel has really started to notice the outside world. She is really intent on faces. She intensely looks into the faces of her stuffed animals and she also loves dolls. She primarily likes to chew on their hands and feet and bit their heads, but she does truly get excited about seeing and playing with dolls. Sharmi was not into dolls yet at this age.

Oh, one last cool thing about this week. We were eating at a restaurant at the base of the slopes and one of the waitresses came out and yelled, “If anyone wants to see a cinnamon bear follow me.” It was really cool. Chantel kicked and squealed and Sharmi and Dean stayed out and watched him for a long time.

Well the family is in their swim suits waiting for me. We decided that there is no point in trying to go out in the rain and stay dry so we are going to embrace the wet and go swimming. I hope the pool is heated again.

I hope you have all had a happy Sabbath.

Cheris