Another interesting day at Penn

Hello Everyone, Again i cannot begin without thanking you all for all the cards and blog and well wishes. I know that i have been hard to reach by phone. Jess and the kids came for the weekend and actually stayed till this am. Poor thing took 5 hrs. to get back to D.C. because she had to stop and feed Emma and then Mr. Christian wanted out of the car, and then of course would not get back in the car to continue home. Yikes ! can you imagine that trip with a 3mo. old and a 2yr. old.I was thrilled to have them here as they make me laughand are full of hugs and kisses. But also a little tiring.
So we met with Dr. Porter today. My blood counts are very slowly recovering(although my white count is still low) so we discussed the bone marrow transplant(mini vs. conventional)and basically there is a one in three chance i will die from the chemo with the conventional trans. vs. a one in ten chance of dying with the mini. But the conventionalhas a 50% cure rate if you survive the chemo where as the mini has a greater chance of relapse and death from the Leukemia. Very sobering numbers but better then back in Feb. when i was going to Jeff. So i think i will stick with the mini and hope for permanent remission or that new drugs will be out if i relapse.I've bee sob with exertion and have a slight cough, so Dr. Porter wanted a cat scan of my chest today. We scheduled it for 12:30 (a 2 hr. wait). the nurse gave me the script and said "you have a 2hr. wait , why not go get some lunch?" Well as you know, you don't have to tell me twice to eat so we high tailed it over to the nearest pizzaria and i had a nice slice of pepperoni pizza and a soda(diet of course). Then we got bagels for the nurses on 6 Rhoades and visited with them and went to the cat scan dept. I signed in and they called my name and said "you have been fasting for 4 hrs. right? Well i tried to liebut couldn't sssoooo the couldn't do the scan cause i ate(even though the nurse told me to). So i resceduled for next week. Then we drove home (pretty annoyed after wandering the streets to kill 2 hrs.). Got home around 1:30 and had a 3:00pm appt. with my new family Dr. As our dear friend Bob is also quite ill. Dr. Kuhar is just lovely(after waiting another hour) but didn't like my breathing and did an EKG which is normal and checked my O2 level which is normal. So i am having a Cat scan tomorrow at 1:00pm. I got home at 6:05pm. What a day!!!!And i miss the babies. Its organized chaos when they are here but Jess brings a certain peace to the house and definitely maturity.So please crank up the prayers. I know the donor is a woman and is 36 yrs. old. What a selfless thing to do! I wonder if she has small children? or works full time and needs to use vacation time for the harvesting. Well i am very grateful to her for agreeing to do this.I ha dsome friends over tonite as our Bev turned 60! The girls brought dinner and Joe did all the work as iwas at the Dr. He did a great job and made many great cosmos. It was soooo good to see everyone. i really miss my social life and friends. I think the cosmo celebration is on hold as Dr. Porter hopes to get to transplant within 3 weeks and i have lots and lots of appt. before then. But boy oh boy will we have lots to celebrate after that. So thank you again for everything and especilly the prayers. Janet i hope you are feeling better. Miss Bonnie i pray for you many times a day. Mo and Bobkeep up the good work. MDF kepus laughing and Meredith i will call tomorrow and i really hope to see you while you are in town for whatever time you have free. Miss Suzanne we are all thinking of you and hope you are resting at the beach. And to everyone elsethank you and sleep tight.
love you all
Debbie