reminder - new location

Sam Carrasco's blog is now here: Sam Carrasco's Psalm 34 blog

Sam's new blog location

AUGUST 2, 2006: Sam's blog has moved again. It's now here:

samueljob.wordpress.com

NEW BLOG - THIS BLOG HAS MOVED - NEW BLOG IS SOMEWHERE ELSE... SEE BELOW

Friends, Blogger is just too slow and clunky, and I went ahead and moved Sam Carrasco's Psalm 34 blog to a new location. Here it is, below:


http://www.urbanonramps.com/psalm34/

please bookmark it.

For you RSS fans out there, here's the new RSS url for Sam's new blog:

http://www.urbanonramps.com/psalm34/index.php?&feed=feed

mellow week

The doc did not have Sam on any chemo this past week. He went in from blood test at the clinic yesterday and got an ANC reading of 0.4, still very low. They did not check him then. He goes back this Wednesday for a full checkup. Our hope is that his blood counts have recovered enough to begin the next round of inter-maintenance which is "mellower" than last time. He gets doc visits every ten days. But we'll see. We are trying to plan a Spring visit to the family back in Brooklyn, and we've got to wait a bit before going for plane tickets.

Grandma Muslimah went home yesterday. She was here for two weeks, and it was an incredibly wonderful time for our family. She's a blessing.

Kafi was Sick Sick Sick yesterday. She went to the doc who said she has a sinus infection. She laid in bed all day. Sam went to Aunt Shirley's, and our friend Ilene took Micah for the night. I went with Flo and took the Harambee Children's Choir to sing at the Child Evangelism Fellowship banquet. When I got home at 8am Kafi was asleep, dark stupor passed out asleep. She slept all night, but when I woke this morning she was out of the bed, cleaning! She came through sniffling and hacking and I asked how she was and she said, "I feel good." Mothers.

Tonight is a neighbor girl's quinceaneara, a Mexican sweet 15 party. Somehow I ended up on the list for providing and/or filming the video. I don't know how I get signed up for these things. But I was out of town for three days this week, the folks couldn't reach me, and now they have someone else.

This week, in San Antonio, I met a person from Michigan who says she reads Sam's blog regularly and prays for him (and us). That really touched my heart. There are days when it feels like it's just us here, battling the disease and battling "the cure." I was surprised by how much my spirit was lifted. Thx.

Sam's back home

They released him early this morning. They had kept him for observation. Duly observed, they didn't see anything, and now we are all here. Thank you for your prayers and support. Grandma Muslimah spent the night with him at the hospital, as Kafi and I were at the Harambee Annual Dinner, which went very well. Now it's just a slow, tired Sunday afternoon. Auntie Zola just came, which is great for the kids and a great help to us.

morning update

Sam is doing just fine. I'm hopeful that they'll release him this afternoon. It's observation that he's under, and they've observed a kid who wanted a corn dog for dinner, watched the animated Sinbad movie (which Dad thinks was Great), and didn't want to go to sleep. The best thing for them is to hold him for blood culture results, which begin creeping in at 48 hours. But there's a chance he'll go home with a strong antiobiotic today.

It's been an ok week. Since Wednesday he actually has not eaten much. On Wednesday he literally ate almost nothing. After the clinic visit yesterday, where we asked lots of questions, we figured out that it might been the strong antiobiotics from last week's hospital stay that may be suppressed his appetite. Thursday he ate a little more. So he's just been weak, the ANC is low, he has this cough that's not helping - then he shivers in clinic. So we are just sitting here now, waiting for breakfast. He wants to go out of the room, maybe to the family room. We'll see. Thanks for your prayers and support.

Life Happens

Sam is checking back into the hospital for at least tonight. He got a shiver today while he was in clinic. They don't know what that was (often it's a sign of a fever coming and/or an infection) so to monitor him they are checking him in. This is unexpected. We've been at the clinic since 9, we being Muslimah, Sam and Micah. I expect that this is rather routine, that his body is pretty weak (still) because of the chemo - his blood tests showed an ANC of 0.2, still pretty low. The combination of his cold and the heavy chemo have kept his counts low. We are one day away from our annual dinner. I'm glad Grandma is here. Sam is not going to be too happy to be back in the hospital. Unless he's looking forward to Power Rangers, in which case I guess he will be. I'll check back soon.