Pictures

Mike and Cousin Hunter hanging out at the Rodeo Benefit for me



Here's Me, Mike, and Juicy!

Day -1

After this I'm going to need a brain transplant because I keep forgetting my password to this site. Tomorrow is Day 0 or TRANSPLANT DAY. I'm nervous, anxious, excited, and more to get to this day. My cousin Liz is here today to get ready for her end of the process when she gets knocked out and donates her healthy marrow to me. I guess all of my bad marrow is now gone as I've gone through 4 days of induction chemo before today. I'm super grateful to Liz for stepping up and doing this somewhat painful process for me. She really is giving me a new opportunity for life and hopefully many more years. It's an amazing thing and amazing that science and medicine has gotten many patients through this same process. MD Anderson does 700 transplants a year! Amazing when you think about that - almost 2 every day.

I've been feeling okay. The biggest issues are nausea and the pneumonia everyone's worried about. The nausea sucks and I just tossed my cookies again after I ate lunch. I can eat some days but not others. The pneumonia is freaking everyone out because I started coughing again on Saturday and my Mom came down with something last Thursday but was coming around here until Monday when the Infectious Disease doctor essentially kicked her out until she feels better. Dad is down here too but now he's got the cold and I haven't seen him for a couple of days.

So the word is that Liz will have her procedure around 8am tomorrow morning and then sometime after I lunch I'll receive her fresh marrow through a central line (IV), which is kind of like a blood transfusion. I think it takes 1-2 hours for the whole process and I might feel a little sleepy. I just hope this is the cure I need and that it works for a long, long, long time.