The greatest gift

I received the phone call that I have been waiting for. My donor has been found. It is a 30 year old female that lives somewhere in the US. She is a complete match. I am beyond excited that I have a donor. It's the best Christmas present that I could receive. I was having a hard time remaining positive that a donor could be found because all the news I was getting from the transplant center was less than positive. It will take 4 weeks to work up the donor and be ready for transplant. Right now we are looking at the end of January. I am excited that I get to spend the holidays and the new year with family before I embark on this new journey. I am so blessed to have a perfect stranger that is willing to donate their bone marrow to save my life. How do you thank a person like that? I hope that I will have the opportunity to tell her what this gift means to me.

My chemo treatment last week went better than I expected. I had to go to the clinic everyday and get hooked up. I was lucky that I was in and out in less than 2 hours. Nausea is the only side effect that I experienced. So far I have no complaints about this chemo regimen. I'm not sure if they will do one more round before the transplant. I will have lots of test in the next few weeks to make sure my body can handle the transplant.

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a great New Year. Thank you for keeping my family and I in your prayers.

Consolidation Chemo - Day 1

So today I went to the clinic for the first of 5 days of chemo. Today was pretty easy (hope I can still say that at the end of the week). The whole thing took about 2 hours. I am getting two different chemo drugs that I have never had before. My transplant doctor suggested this regimen since my body won't have a resistance built up to it. I am so happy to be doing this in the clinic and not in a hospital. I think that is what is making this a better experience for me this time around. I get to sit in a comfy chair and read my magazines and then I get to go home. Too bad transplant won't be this way. This regimen will bring down my blood counts and I will more than likely need blood transfusions. So I am still taking blood donations if you are able give. Thank You!!

I got my port put in on Friday and it was the best surgery experience I have had since all this cancer stuff got started. I don't know why doctors don't use sedation more often because it is awesome. Every time I have had a port or PICC line put in it has been with local anesthetic only. I was wide awake and fully aware of what is going on. Not my favorite experience. I got an IV and some really good sedation drugs and all I remember is getting on the surgery table. The next thing I know they are wheeling me out of surgery. I hope to talk my doctor into giving me that for my next bone marrow biopsy.

Lots going on

This week will be a lot busier than I am use to. Dr. Crim called me last Thursday and told me that I will be doing more chemo starting the week of the 10th. Luckily this time I am able to do it out patient. We are trying new drugs that I have never had before, so hopefully the side effects are not more than I am use to. I have a lot of appointments this week to get ready for chemo. I have to have another ECHO of my heart to make sure it is not damaged from all the chemo. Then I have to have another port placed. This one will be under the skin. I met with the surgeon today and he thinks we can go thru the same incision eliminating another scar. Luckily this time I will have some sedation during the surgery so I can sleep right thru it.

Last week the guys my dad works with at the base held a burger burn for me. They get all the burgers donated and during reserve weekend instead of the guys going out to eat they buy a hamburger. Just from that they raised $500 to help out with my medical expenses. I was floored that they raised so much money for me. They presented me with the money last week. All the Commanders and the guys from the shop were there. Of course I started to cry when they presented me with the money. On the left is a picture of me with all the Commanders. The right picture is with all the guys in the shop my dad works with.

I decided that I had too much free time on my hands and I wanted to find an organization that I could volunteer for. A friend told me about A Wish With Wings. They grant wishes to terminally ill children. I met the people that run this organization and they are wonderful people. Every year they raise money by taking pictures with Santa. I made sure I dressed festive when I went to volunteer. Well I wasn't dressed festive enough. When I got there they showed me where to change and I had to wear an elf costume. Luckily I wasn't by myself. Also they didn't tell us to bring tights because the costumes aren't that long. I made the best of it and even took a picture with Santa. I have proof that I was an elf.

We are still looking for a donor. I have had 5 out of 6 people respond to have additional blood work done. We are still a few weeks away from finding out if any of them will be my donor. I figure it will be January before I get my transplant. I am fine with that, but I hope it won't be too much longer. Waiting is getting harder. I really want to get back to work. Being home all day does get boring.

I'm still here

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday. I had a great lunch with my family and we even got to see a little bit of snow.

Everything has been going very well for me. Every Monday I go for lab work and so far they have all looked good. I finally feel like myself again. As far as the donor search, things are finally starting to look up. I got word that 3 people have made appointments for additional blood work. Once the blood samples arrive in Dallas it will take 2-3 weeks to determine if anyone will be a perfect match for me. I feel good that one of them will be my donor. I am still waiting to find out if I will have another round of chemo before my transplant. Since it has been over a month since I left the hospital and the donor search is taking longer than we thought, I might need more chemo to make sure I stay in remission. This round is much easier because I will only have to be in the hospital for a week and I get to recover at home. I hope to know something this week if that is going to happen.

Thanks for checking on me.

How to be a donor

Sorry it has taken me so long to update with the information on how to become a donor. All this information comes from the National Marrow Donor Program's website www.marrow.org. It is a good resource for information about the donation process. When you go to the website click on the tab How You Can Help and then click on Join the Registry. You can join online or in person at any of the donation centers listed below.

The Blood Center of Central Texas
4300 North Lamar Boulevard
Austin, TX 78765-4679
(512) 206-1242

Baylor University Medical Center NMDP Donor Center
3409 Worth Street Suite 600, Sammons Tower
Dallas, TX 75246-2029
(214) 820-4279 (800) 4-BAYLOR
http://www.baylorhealth.com

Carter Blood Care
2110 Research Row Suite 613
Dallas, TX 75235
(214) 217-5663 (800) DONATE-4
http://www.nmdpdallas.org

Cook Children's
801 Seventh Avenue
Fort Worth, TX 76104-2733
(682) 885-7562 (800) 643-2448

Baylor College of Medicine Donor Center
1 Baylor Plaza M.S. BCM-285, Room 672E
Houston, TX 77030-3411
(713) 798-3360

South Texas Blood and Tissue Center
6211 IH 10 West
San Antonio, TX 78201-2023
(210) 731-5555 (800) 292-5534
http://www.southtexasblood.org

Sorry it's been so long

Since I have been home not a lot of exciting things have been going on. I do a lot of reading, sleep late and watch tv. Not all that interesting.

Mom and I made the drive to Dallas to meet the transplant doctor. He is a really nice man. He answered all my questions as best as he could and spent about 45 minutes with us. He made me feel better about the whole process. I feel good about him as my doctor. I also got to meet my search coordinator. She is very nice and is working hard to find my donor. We still have no time line on when the transplant is going to take place. I think that is the hardest part. I want to know when this is going to happen so I can start my new life. After transplant I will have a brand new immune system. Because of that I will have a better chance of staying in remission for a very long time.

I did find out that donating bone marrow is much easier than it use to be. You don't have to go thru what I do and have it extracted from the bone. Now they hook you up to a machine that will take the blood and run it thru a machine to extract the cells and then the blood will be put back into your body. This way you have no recovery time. I have the information if anyone would like to be a part of the National Bone Marrow Registry. You might not be able to help me, but you may be able to save another person's life.

TGIF

Well I wanted to update everyone on the donor search. I spoke with my donor coordinator yesterday and she said after they received all my blood typing they put all my information into the donor database and I have 315 potential matches! I can't believe the number. Granted not all are perfect matches, but the fact that I have so many is encouraging. I received funding from the National Marrow Donor Program to test 4 potential donors. They were starting to contact them yesterday. It should be a couple of weeks before we know if any of them are going to be my donor. I am happy that they have started the search. I have a feeling that it will take a month or more to find my donor and get started with the transplant.

Injections are going well. We started them last night at 10pm. I am very proud that my mom was able to give me a shot. It is really not that bad.