Hello Everyone,

This Summer has just flown by.  I have had a lot of fun with the girls.   However, unfortunately we are still haunted by Sharmi’s low immunity and she has been sick three times in the last two months.  The worst was about a month ago when she got “hand, foot and mouth disease” again.  She had a fever of 104 degrees and I could only get it down to 102 degrees with Tylenol.   High fevers are a sign of relapse so as sad as it is, I was glad when Chantel got  a low grade fever.  This gave me comfort in knowing that it wasn’t relapse.  Sharmi of course got it the worst.  She was sick for over a week, and had sores in her mouth and throat which made it difficult to eat.  Last week Sharmi also started coming down with another cold.  I gave her tons of grapefruit seed extract and lots of foot baths and we were able to keep it from getting full blown.  It still wiped her energy out for many days but we were grateful that it was minor. 

Last week she had another oncology check-up.  The last two times we have gone, the blood draw from her arm was painless.  This time however was awful.  Sharmi and I were both in tears before they finally got the blood drawn.  Two veins in her right arm burst when they were trying to do the draw.  This resulted in quite a show of battle wounds.  Sharmi cried, begged, and pleaded with me to take her home and to not make her do it again.  This is such a quick trigger for me, and I instantly have flashbacks of 2 & 1/2 years ago and the worst night of my life.  It is impossible to explain.  Usually people can close their eyes to help pull themselves together, but every time I would try to do that and “shake it off”  the vision would flash before my eyes again.  Finally, I was able to get Sharmi calmed down enough to allow us to put cream on her other arm.  They waited for about ten minutes and then were able to get the draw on third try.  The good news is that her lab reports looked great and she is a healthy little girl still!

One of the projects this summer, was two weeks ago when my parents came and helped me paint the kitchen, family room, and hall way.  It has been a dark brown and we brightened it up a lot with yellow and spice (It is prettier than it sounds   ) . The girls loved the painting, but they didn’t like the fact that grandma and grandpa were painting and not playing with them. 

Last week our very dear friends John and Yvonne, were here from California to visit us.  We had a great time.  We went and visited the Kangaroo Farm.  Yvonne loved kissing the lama’s.  Sharmi enjoyed that too, but she also had another experience that very few people can claim.  She was gently feeding a nice kangaroo and the mean kangaroo came up behind her and bit her on the back.  It bit her so hard it left two bruises from his upper and lower lips.  The poor girl was scared to death and cried and cried.   But she got over it quickly and she likes telling the story,  “I was feeding a kangaroo and FOR NO REASON AT ALL that other kangaroo came up and BIT ME ON THE BACK, FOR NO REASON AT ALL!!”   She is so animated!  Chantel likes telling the story too, ”bite, sharmi, mean,.. sharmi, bite,… sharmi, ok,…amal (animal) mean!”

Chantel is becoming quite the interesting little girl.  I love listening to her talk.  I was coloring with her today and she kept wanting me to move my hand so she said, “sue see, sue see, color, color” (translated to mean excuse me.)   I am also seeing more of her personality.  She is exactly like her mother.  Today she was lining up foam blocks.  She had several that were squares with holes in the middle.  She lined those up first and then she put the two squares without holes in them on the end.  I watched her carefully, and at three different times I handed her three more squares with holes and she would remove the two without holes, put the one with the hole next in line and then put the two without holes back again.  I waited until she was done and then I would hand her another one.  She did the entire process all over again.  She determined all on her own that this was how it was supposed to be done.  It was very cute.

Well I miss you all.  Good-night.

Cheris