2nd Annual Milan's Miracle Run - Join Team Josie!!

Hello everyone. I just wanted to remind you of the 2nd Annual Milan's Miracle Run that we will be participating in at the end of April. This is a great opportunity to help raise money for pediatric cancer research here in West Michigan. If you would like to participate, please follow the link below to register. I believe it's a bit cheaper if you register prior to April 1, but you can still register later if you're unsure if you're able to join us. Darcia and I would like to coordinate "Team Josie" again this year, and we hope to have more participants than last year. If you're planning on running / walking this year (1k kids fun run, 3k walk, 5k run / walk, 8k run), and would like to be on "Team Josie", please let us know by April 10, so we can have the appropriate number of "Team Josie" t-shirts made up. We would love to have you join us!! Shoot me a quick email ( marc.black21@gmail.com ) if you're planning on joining "Team Josie" and be sure to include what size t-shirt you'd like. One little catch in this event is that it's held on a Sunday morning. If you are unavailable due to church - related committments, I completely understand. Even if you've already said you'd like to join us, please respond to this note with your t-shirt size, as I don't think I currently have any recorded!

www.milansmiraclerun.com

Josie's Home

Josie is home! After a 5 day hospital stay, Josie was released yesterday. She is feeling good, and even got her Broviac line removed!! She's down to one tube sticking out of her now. She will be on antibiotics for a week or so here at home, and should be good to go. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers through this. More details later...

www.milansmiraclerun.com

Hi everyone. Well,
the time is approaching for the 2nd annual Milan's
Miracle Run to raise money for pediatric cancer research in West
Michigan. We had the
pleasure of participating in last year's run, and had a great time. We had a group of about 13 people
representing "Team Josie" last year - thanks to those who
participated! This year, our desire is
to have a larger "Team Josie" participating in the second run. Milan
was a young girl who lost her battle to pediatric cancer a few years ago. Her parents are very active in raising money
for pediatric cancer research, and set up this annual run. To see more about Milan's
story, please visit

www.milansmiraclerun.com

Last year there were about 400 runners / walkers. Hopefully there will be many more this
year. If you are interested in joining
us this year to help raise money for pediatric cancer research, please let us know. If we have enough interest, we are thinking
about putting together some "Team Josie" T-Shirts for our team to
wear during the event. You'll also get a
Milan's Miracle Run shirt, I
believe. So let us know! See the website for more details. You'll need to register there. The event is on a Sunday morning, so that may
complicate things with church service obligations. If that is an issue, no worries.

The event is April 29, and starts at 9 am. Should
probably arrive earlier. There is a 1K
kids walk, 3K run/walk, a 5K run and an 8K run.
It's $25 if you register before April 1, and $28 if you register after
April 1.

Hope to see you there!!

Marc

Also... we're on the
search for a creative team name. If you
have any suggestions, send it our way!!

48 hours into 6 days...

Josie has never liked to be the typical case and she is following that pattern this time in the hospital too!  Earlier this morning, the plan was still the same and we were hoping to be out of here by tomorrow (Wednesday) at the latest.  At 11:30, the doctors did their rounds and the plan had drastically changed.  The new cultures that they took yesterday had started growing infection as well, which means - we don't get to go home tomorrow!

The doctor believes this infection was actually already present in one of Josie's lines and it was by the grace of God that things happened the way they did on Sunday because now it has been caught before she became terribly sick and it really did become an emergency.  One way to alleviate problems like this is to get rid of the IV line and since she is now done with IV chemo (as of last Friday! WOOT, WOOT!) they can pull the line safely.  This is scheduled for tomorrow (Wednesday) at 9:00am and is a procedure done under sedation.  Once this is done, they will give her a peripheral line in her arm and run antibiotics through that for the following 2-3 days.  Our best guess at being home with her now is late Friday or Saturday (most likely Saturday the doctor said).

On a side note, Josie had a very crazy beginning to her day with several diaper blow outs - one of these blowouts ended with us cutting off her shirt and throwing everything away.  That was at about 5am - nice way to start the day!

She is still acting fine and is stealing the show with the doctors and nurses! :)  She's waiving at them all in her special way as if she was the queen in a parade!

Sleep is scattered and after tonight, I think Marc and I will start switching back and forth again.  Please pray that this does clear up by the weekend - visions of our month long stay last summer are all too fresh.

Blessings & hope,
Darcia & Marc

Hospital Visit - March 2012

Darcia's Latest Facebook Posts... never a dull moment.

I was so looking forward to a quiet week this week...but Josie just won't go for it! We are in need of prayer for Josie, here's the short version of what it happening: Josie's IV line got compromised yesterday (long story) and we ended up taking her to the ER for 2 antibiotic infusions and blood cultures to make sure there wasn't an infection in her blood. She never spiked a fever or anything to... indicate infection, but they are very cautious when it comes to IV lines like the ones Josie has. Well, this morning I got a call from her pediatrician and it appears that the blood cultures grew "infection" and grew it quite quickly. So...now we are waiting to find out what needs to happen next. It could be we are admitted to the hospital or it could mean taking her in every day for blood cultures or something like this. The pediatrician is checking with the oncologist office and they will call me later this morning. I'll keep things posted. Meanwhile...Josie is acting incredibly cute and silly this morning, which is a huge blessing!


Finally got a call...Josie will be admitted today for at least 48 hours for observation and anti-biotic treatments. Will post more as I know more. Thankful that we were able to stay out of inpatient for this long - it's been since July of last year!