The Process Begins

We had a long, busy day. Ron and I picked up Johnnie, then we stopped for breakfast. Because they were going to be taking a lot of blood from Johnnie, the nurses wanted her to have a good breakfast. We went to the bone marrow transplant unit where they took our vital signs and drew blood from both of us. They only took a few vials of blood from me, but they probably took 15 or so from Johnnie.

Then we hopped the shuttle to Wilford Hall and the apheresis unit there. They had all kinds of paperwork for Johnnie to complete, they took a look at her veins to make sure they are good enough to get the cells, they explained the process to her, and took even more blood. Poor Johnnie--by the time it was all done they had taken more than 20 vials of blood.

Back at BAMC, she had an Xray and an EKG and we were finally ready to leave around 1 PM. We went to lunch at Cheddars, then came by the house so that Johnnie could see Josh, Cyrise and the kids. At one point the three little girls, Aubrey, Camryn and Gina were all sitting in a semi-circle on the floor in front of Johnnie, just staring at her. :o) I love how they are so comfortable with my sisters almost immediately.

We were all tired, so Ron and I took Johnnie back to her place around 3:30 so that she could rest. I hope she sleeps well tonight. I took a little nap when we got back home. I worked with Reece for awhile on his counting to 100 and sight words. I put Aubrey, Cammie and Reece to bed at 8, after reading them a couple of stories and singing Little Bunny Foo-Foo three times. They all went to sleep so quickly tonight.

Tomorrow we have a family conference with my doctor and a bunch of other people. Kelly, Josh and Johnnie will go with us (me and Ron) to the meeting. I think that's the only thing going on tomorrow. Things are going so quickly now that I'm losing track of things.