Trees

Trees “Keep a green tree in your heart and a singing bird will come.” Chinese Proverb In November, the deciduous trees on our property cover the lawn with a radiant multi-colored blanket of leaves. Each fall, I spend several hours raking them into piles. Then, I haul them to my flowerbeds where they act as [...]

Long Term Follow Up Care

We just returned from the SCCA’s Long Term Follow-Up Class for transplant patients. The class is a requirement before a patient can be discharged, and we have only more day of appointments to keep here, concluding with tomorrow afternoon’s Exit Conference. We plan to drive back to Hood River on Friday, one day early! John [...]

Bone Pain

LISTLESS is the word of the day, and an apt description for John’s demeanor of the last few days. Suddenly the walk to the clinic is a challenge. With his white blood cells hovering around zero while his reds and platelets continue to drop, the question becomes, “What exactly IS circulating around my system?” While [...]

First Chemo

I’m sure that many of you reading this blog have experience with cancer as either a patient or family member, and the scenes we describe are old news. Let me just say that I have the greatest respect for all who travel this road. We see courage displayed on a daily basis at the Seattle [...]

Bring It On & The IMF

It’s HOT in Seattle, as I guess it is everywhere else on the West Coast. Not much air conditioning in these parts, as the sweltering days are few and far between. After the winter and spring we’ve had, the warm weather feels great. On Friday & Saturday we attended a Patient & Family Seminar hosted [...]

Tests & Classes

I thought I would update the page while John is enjoying his full-body MRI. These first two weeks of diagnostic testing have examined every organ and orifice and testify to SCCA’s attention to detail. So far John is passing all of his tests and is on track for the transplant procedure. We spent 6 hours [...]

Thank You

I’m going to jump in here and say a big “thank you” to some of the people who have helped to make this journey possible. Our families, of course, where it all starts. Especially Ike and Noah, who have risen to some pretty incredible challenges these last few years – more than I ever knew [...]

Stem Cell Transplant 101

The science behind a stem cell transplant is elegant in its simplicity. Blood stem cells, which reside in the marrow, are mobilized by medication to move into the bloodstream. Once they are present there in sufficient numbers, the patient is hooked up to an apheresis machine that separates and collects the stem cells. These cells [...]