Deck the Hogs

The latest look in hair and holiday fashion. This sweatshirt has been in my closet for years but it never fails to get a chuckle from me and anyone who sees it. A fellow in the waiting room at the clinic a couple of weeks ago wanted to know where I got it.

The shirt was a gift from my friend Joan, of Girls on Tour, who died this summer just after I came home from the hospital. Joan is the friend who began writing Knock Knock jokes in her blog comments. She visited me in the hospital with Janet, the other member of our trio. I was already very sick and don't remember the conversation but I do remember them being in the room. Janet claims I was able to give them good pointers about Kansas City, but they brought me gifts that I had no idea I even had, much less who gave them to me!

Joan died unexpectedly in August of lung failure/pneumonia but she remains a voice in my ear. She was a three time cancer survivor and her approach to life and health is a model for me these days. She lived every day to the fullest. She never missed an opportunity to laugh...and she had plenty of laughs poking fun at me, a much more intense person. Just this week something happened to rattle my cage and I could hear Joan's gravelly voice saying "see, I just don't have time for that shit..." and poof! I let it go.

I don't know that I will be able to live up to Joan's standard of getting the most of every minute, but I do know that I will worry less about things that used to cause me "tornado brain"--where your mind works on a worry endlessly, until it winds you up back where you started.

On this snowy Christmas eve I will be cooking a big dinner for tonight for M&D and my sister, Janice. I will know that Joan appreciates being remembered and making me laugh. I will be praying that Janice's husband flies uneventfully from Hartford, CT and sending thanks that he is not connecting through Chicago. I will revel in eating fresh spinach salad and non-soggy asparagus.

At the clinic yesterday, I saw Dr. Aljitawi. He was happy to see me feeling and looking good. I have one more Cellcept pill to take on Friday. That is the end of the immune suppressant drug. He said they will be watching closely for any new symptoms of graft vs. host in the next three to four weeks after completion of the two transplant drugs.

My counts were all down and I took another Neupogen shot to prod the factory along. I remember this from the last days in the hospital. I had almost daily Neupogen shots to stimulate the bone marrow until it began producing on its own. I expect the same thing to happen now. I return to the clinic next Tuesday, December 30th.

I told Dr. Aljitawi that is my 55th birthday and I would like to have the PICC line out for my birthday and he made note of this in my file. I have mixed feelings about this because I also confirmed that they will be drawing dozens of vials of blood at the 100 day check up on January 6th. The PICC line offers painless access to as much blood as anyone orders and after it is gone, I will get stuck each time. Still, it's fun to imagine life without it.

Other progress indicators include getting an eyelash in my eye. This is news because I haven't had any eyelashes at all, much less any growth that would include one falling out. I had Mark buy mascara when he was here for Thanksgiving, but there's really nothing to put it on. He was thoughtful enough to not point that out.

Y'all be careful out there today.

Cathi