Tis the season to be jolly!

I dutifully reported to the clinic at 7am today, accompanied by my sister Mari. And Dr. Abhyankar reported to me that my bone marrow is actually 90.6% donor. What Mary was working from Monday was the blood. (Remember Dr. Ganguly ordered both tests on the same day.)

Dr. A said that the blood is usually behind the marrow.... he was clearly pleased with the results. He believes that as I continue to taper off the transplant drugs that the donor cells will take over the rest of the marrow. If a booster is necessary, they will do that after the 100 days. So I need the bone marrow biopsy after 100 days to show more than 90.6% donor. It just needs to be higher than the last one.

My blood counts were up. The WBC was 1.9, but the ANC was .7 meaning I can celebrate with a salad! I get a printout of my blood work each time I visit the clinic. Two pages, one CBC and one chemistry each with 12 or 15 line items. (you can look it up, I don't know what CBC stands for.) When I started this process every single line had an (L) or (H) beside it for low or high compared to normal. Today there are only 5 or 7 (L)s on the list. Most of them are beside the cell counts that I chronicle over and over.

Mari and I danced and cried all the way out of the clinic. We got in the car and shouted and celebrated and called my family all the way to Starbucks for a celebratory coffee. This is the greatest news!

This purple christmas tree appeared on the deck at Mom & Dad's after dark one night. Someone set it up, plugged it in then thumped on the window on the way out. I thought it looked especially pretty with snow on it this week.

So altogether now! let's boost those XY cells from my donor brother over the last 10% of my puny cells. I am forever grateful to the folks who are carrying me through this adventure.