Happy B-Day Carol

Well, since it’s been over a year that Chase has been fighting this challenge, this is the second birthday that Carol is celebrating while pre-occupied with Chase’s condition. Needless to say, she’s been “through the ringer” a few times but fortunately, she’s keeping her spirits up, as well as Chase’s. Even now in his fairly unresponsive state, Carol is more effective than me at taking care of his needs. Every time we run into a tough situation with the ventilator and I’ve been struggling for an hour or so trying to get his saturation up, suctioning out whatever seems to be blocking his airway, etc. my last resort is to call in Carol to sit behind Chase and just hold him for a while. It works every time – his saturation goes right up, his heart rate stabilizes, etc. as if he’s communicating, “that’s just what I wanted mom”...

I’m not taking it personally this time – I’ll never have her connection with Chase, but I’m just glad to have her help in those situations and throughout this whole ordeal. Although Carol has had a few tough spots along this road, for the most part she’s been extremely uplifting for our whole family and the main reason we haven’t “cracked” yet. We’re still believing that Chase is effectively “turning the corner”, but he’s just getting the deep rest that he needs for his body to repair. Along the way, it seems that his favorite thing to do these days is just to cuddle and snuggle with Carol – I guess he’ll always be a momma’s boy...

Barbara and I picked out a special momento for Carol on behalf of Chase and celebrated her B-day on his bed while she opened the presents – we know he hears us and wants to remain “connected” with what’s going on. His latest struggle in terms of having the energy to get going again is a seriously low hemoglobin level (6.5 in today’s blood work). We believe a big contributor to this problem is a long-term side effect of the steroids that we just never got Chase completely off – it’s been a necessary evil for a long time, trying to reduce any possible swelling or other symptoms. He’s down to a low dose again and we’re finally going to make the switch back to a much milder version (Cortef) that we’re hoping will enable his adrenal glands to get repaired. In the meantime, we may have to do a transfusion at home to get a quick boost in his hemoglobin and energy level.

We had a good weekend reading books on Padre Pio and watching documentaries. We managed to find about a dozen movies and we watched most of them already. The more we learn about his life, the more amazed we are about having a saint like that who lived in our era. We have no doubt that he is praying with us and for us – the signs that he’s given us have inspired us along the way to keep on going during the most difficult moments along the way. Anyone interested in getting more info on Padre Pio, just let us know and we’ll forward some things. We’ll also have some of his info available at the prayer service this Sunday at 3 pm at the chapel of Holy Name at 630 Harmon St. in Birmingham, MI 48009.

As regularly scheduled, we also plan to pray collectively tonight at 9 pm EST for the miracle of Chase’s return to Divine Health. Thanks again for lifting Chase in prayer and helping us to keep the faith. Please say an extra prayer for Carol on her B-day to continue doing a great job with an extremely difficult challenge.

Thanks and God Bless!!

John & Carol Sammut
Chase & Barbara