10 -- 6 -- 5 -- 1

Trish felt pretty good today. She started the day with a strong headache and it was knocked out with morphine, just one milligram delivered very slowly. Everyone out there with migraines, forget bout the imitrex and Tylenol and all that other stuff. Ask your doctor for morphine. They tend towards the heavy stuff here.

She talked to a lot of people today -- Thanks for calling her. Between now and Friday all the good cheer you can throw her way will be appreciated. She probably sleep much of Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as Friday and Saturday are chemo days.

On the way out tonight I saw Dr. Griffiths, we spoke for a little bit. Later she stopped in on Trish and they had a long conversation. It included reviewing the road map to a transplant and the current status on her donor situation. So where do I begin? On the donor front, the numbers at the top of this post do have significance. When we left Baltimore last time we were told that the initial donor search, we hoped to never need, yielded 10 matches. When we arrived in Baltimore on Feb 13th, we were told that the list had been whittled down to 6 donors. Tonight, Dr. Griffiths told Trish that the list was down to 5 and that they had identified the top candidate and he appears to be willing. He just needs to go through the medical clearance now.

All of the final 5 are men and that is good too! Men make better donors than women, why? Because they don't have babies, which helps create extra antigens in their systems and make transplants more difficult. Interesting question to use at your next party or maybe for Paul Castronovo's "You can't win" contest.

One other thing that Dr. G reminded Trish and everyone who will be around her is to get a flu shot and if you aren't healthy - don't visit. On the horizon the next major milestone after the chemo set for this weekend is the bone marrow biopsy scheduled for Day 14 (March 9). This will be the first time they check to see if the chemo worked. If there is no sign of Leukemia we keep moving on. If they see Leukemia, this means they were unable to put her in to remission and we re-group. Dr. G says that if this happens there are things they can do, but the chances take a turn for the worse. Not something we are going to focus on for now.

Trish's Mom arrives tomorrow and I head home on Thursday for about two weeks. The way things stand right now I will be home on Day 14. The bots and I will drive up on March 15 -- the boys will fly home on the 18th so they can be at school the next day.

Pray, Call, Write. Thank you.