Rain and Recovery

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We had really loud, long-lasting thunderstorms here Tuesday night. Even had a tornado hit one local neighborhood and damage some houses. We got several inches of rain, but are still in a drought, so I hope it will rain more.

Reece came and got into bed with us shortly after the thunder started. He was just amazed at the sound of it and kept talking about it the next day. Josh said that when he came in to get Reece up for school Wednesday morning, Aubrey and Cammie were sitting together on the couch at the end of our bed, sound asleep and leaning against one another. How cute is that? :o) We didn't hear them come in, but they must have been afraid. I wish I had known they were there.

Ron and I spent most of Thursday at the BMT clinic (bone marrow transplant). My lab results look good--everything is normal or almost normal except for that pesky red blood count. My doctor said that it sometimes takes up to six months for that to recover, and that if it's not going up in a couple more months he can give me something to stimulate the cell growth.

I got Rituxan in my port and Methotrexate in my Ommaya reservoir. Did fine with it until we left. As soon as I got into the car I started to retch and felt a bit queasy all day. They gave me benedryl and tylenol as pre-meds, and the benedryl makes me so sleepy. I was pretty much wiped out for the rest of the day. I'll have one more Rituxan treatment next week, but will continue the Methotrexate every other week for quite awhile. Those chemos are to try to prevent relapse; they specifically target cancer cells.

Dr. O said that Johnnie's cells and mine must be a nearly perfect match because I've had so little trouble. He expects I still might have some graft versus host disease at some point, but I've had few symptoms of it so far (symptoms include redness of the skin, or a rash, itchiness, diarrhea, dryness of mucous membranes). I'm at day 51 after my transplant.

In the next couple of weeks I'll have a PET scan and a test to see what percentage of my cells are from the transplant. Last time they checked it was 80%. I'm hoping it will be 100% this time. Dr. O says that I am doing "remarkably well." :o)

Thank you all for praying for me!