Thursday Update - Biopsy is done

Welcome to day 42. Trish didn't feel so hot this morning because it was her first day on Vfend and you have to take a double dose to start (this is just a pill and it replaced the orange juice looking ambisome that we hate so much).

Dr. Griffiths showed up at 1 for Trish's biopsy. After looking at Trish's counts she proclaimed wih confidence that today's biopsy would prove Trish's remission. She said counts don't come back like this if you still have Leukemia in your system. I believe her. We should know something definite by Wednesday next week.

In the meantime, if you want to see some good looking line charts click on the counts.....Trish's whites are at 1050 and the ANC is up to 490. In fact tomorrow, we don't expect to get any antibiotics in IPOP -- just lab work and maybe some platlets. Her platlet count was only 15 today, 10 is the magic number when they give her some more. So I am betting our short Friday, might turn into a long Friday with platlets on tap. Guess I can watch the Gator victory celebration on the Sling box while they are downloading the platlets for Trish.

So, what does this mean? We are hoping that next week will be our last in IPOP and that we could go home the following week. I have made notes on the chemo calendar showing exact approximate dates for those who want to know. The first thing Trish asked Dr. Griffiths when she told her that it looked good for her to go home was "Can I go to work?" -- You hear that folks at the rock!? She wants to come back and work.....

Something tells me she will also try to do lots of baking too....

She'll only be back for two weeks -- tops from what we can gather (it is still early), she'll still have a compromised immune system and not much hair.

Dr. Griffiths says she checked the schedule and it looks like her donors marrow is scheduled to be harvested the last week of April or first week in May. So we won't have much time at home. Trish and I are looking at taking the auto-train home -- she wants to have her car home in case she wants to drive herself somewhere.

I borrowed a picture guide to bone marrow transplants and will try copying some pages and posting them to the web site for those who want to know more.

So for the moment all systems look good, we really won't know until we get the biopsy results and see what Trish's counts do next week. We are also hoping to move out of the Rockwell House and back to Aunt Mary's house on Easter Sunday (we'll confirm that tomorrow). Christ is Risen, indeed he is risen. Trish 40 days of penance looks like it will be exact. We started the chemo on Ash Wednesday and look to be finishing the recovery period on Easter Sunday. Wow - that's even better than eating a whole Italian Easter meat pie......