Our warrior returned from LA with John to find our basement had been flooded in the New Year’s Eve atmospheric bomb (I think that was what they were calling it). We are all now rethinking our love of our basement 🤨

Zack and I got a pass on this as we left LAX for SAT to see my folks for a few days.

John spent this week cleaning up, moving things, drying things, fixing things, filling sandbags and draping our light wells for the rain that followed on Thursday. I was able to help in the form of phone calls to providers to get our dryer and sump pumps fixed. Even without the sump pumps working, the mitigation strategies held. The one area that is still taking on water is our machine room and John McGyvered a solution so the water would collect in a bucket and not on the floor. We are eternally grateful to our neighbor, Diego, who spent many hours helping us and to our nieces, Kate and Emily, who helped fill sand bags.

We are expecting 2.5+ inches on Monday so are happy the sump pumps are working again. Nothing says happy birthday to John more than no water in the basement. 

Sam continues on his blina treatment (2 28 day periods separated by 1 week of no blina). He got a new bag on Tuesday and on Wednesday so he now is on a weekly blina replacement cycle (we had to do some interim 72 hour bags and 96 hour bags, plus the 24 hour bag on Tuesday, so we could go to LA but replacing the bag weekly is ideal: fewer trips to clinic).

His classes started this week too which we were surprised by.  He’s taking 6 classes total:Physics and Pre-Cal at a private school that offers 1-1 classes, Chinese AP through a private tutor, and he’s taking 3 classes through our local school district: AP English Language (in person as much as he can but also through the Home and Hospital program), US History and Living Skills (these 2 are online). The private school started again this week but thankfully he could hop on a Zoom class on the quick Monday at 8:30 am when he realized his misunderstanding of the schedule. 

He is regretting signing up for an 8:30 am class though 😂. It’s only 2x/week so not too bad but he is finding himself staying up later and later at night either watching TV with us and/or gaming with friends, so……natural consequences??  #teenlife

We are still puzzling through how to juggle classes with the stem cell transplant 6 week+ window in March and April. We want that time to be solely focused on his health. It’s always a balance of keeping focused on the now while also keeping an eye on the future and the future future as well. And we recognize that classes and school do provide a comforting structure, opportunity for engaging his brain and living his pre-leukemia life to some extent, and that helps his mental health.

#FULeukemia

#TeamSam