In the 1971 movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the eccentric candy maker Willy Wonka hides golden tickets among his candy bars. The finder of the special ticket wins a trip to Woka's candy factory for themselves and a guardian, and a chance to win a extra-special prize at the end of the trip. For Charlie this prize is a chance to start his life over. No longer is he a poor street-urchin, he is redeemed as the heir to the most fantastic magical place on earth.
As it happens I was in the apartment complex office the other day buying bus tokens for our trips to and from MDA, when I noticed something funny about the bag of silver tokens the clerk handed me. Hidden among them was a Golden Token. Golden Bus token or Golden Ticket!
Since then I deiced that this would be Ann's prize for going into remission. Like Wonka's fictional ticket that Charlie finds, it's a symbol of the start of a journey with the promise of a wonderful prize and chance for a new life at the end.
Ann is thrilled and looking forward to her chance to use it.
More updates later today!
Our day started at 5:00 am this morning. I think both of us are in knots over the bone marrow and blood tests today. This should be the point at which the Doctor can tell if the cancer is going into remission or not. The consequences of it not going into remission are pretty big as I understand it.
Ann's cancer is considered high risk for a few different reasons, or combination of risk factors. 1 - she presented with a WBC over 30. 2 - her cancer is positive for a genetic defect (not the worst but still pretty bad). 3 - She is over 30 (not by much). If she fails to go into remission after this initial treatment with chemo (Hyper-CVAD) then it will add another risk factor to the list.
She said the last bone marrow sample from last week is still hurting her some so she asked me to drive to MDA today. Because I do it so infrequently now, it feels funny to drive. We got to the blood draw at the lab and then when to the Bone Marrow clinic, and waited. Our 7:30 appointment turned into more like 8:20.
I think we will have to postpone our meeting with the Doctor. The results from Ann's marrow will not be anywhere near done by lunch. I guess that means we will have a late day here again.
It doesn't bother me as I generally feel safer with Ann here at MDA than at the apartment. But I worry about her energy level and stomach. Sometimes the nausea can sneak up on her suddenly and out of the clear blue.
As it turns out the BMA clinic is not done with the samples yet and out meeting with the Doctor is postponed. So we set out to grab late breakfast. Instead of the main MDA cafeteria (nosy and crowded) we try the Waterfall Cafe in the MDA Mays Clinic Building. There Ann spots something that she thinks she might just be able to eat...the fruit "pielet".The name "pielet" I assume was derived from its nearest direct pastry based ancestor the "Pie". The fruit filling of the "pielet" remained unidentifiably generic and I'm convinced that the two pastry's have little or nothing to do with each other. Having built up enough effort to push past the chemo induced nausea, Ann was extremely disappointed in the entire experience and actually looked very sad about it.
We returned to the Doctor's office and found that the appointment had been postponed again until 2:00 pm. Again because of waiting for test results. I would like to add that while a lot of time at MDA may seem to be centered around waiting for results, it is actually very quick. The blood test Ann took initially in Baton Rouge took the better part of a week to examine. At MDA it takes maybe an hour or two. No complaints at all!
The Nurse calls us back to the Doctor's office. This is it, and I'm very nervous. When we get into the office Ann throws up. I feel like throwing up too.
Update 2
When we get to see the Doctor, I feel like I have the worst case of stage fright ever. Not because of the Doctor. She is a intelligent, devoted and patient person. I'm worried about what she is about to tell us. She shows us the reports from Ann's blood and marrow and its good! 3% blast cells in the marrow, no evidence of residual disease, although she points out it only takes 1 cancer cell to start the entire problem all over again. Ann's WBC is high 54 k/uL but again that's from the Neupogen and will take time to wear off.
Finally she tells us Ann is in remission! We have taken our 1st step towards a hopeful new life.
Now we are expecting to go home for the night and get new appointments tomorrow but the Doctor tells Ann she needs to start the second round of in-patient chemo tonight. So instead of coming home we are told that they are working on the paper work to get her back into the Protective Environment Wing. She will be admitted to a new hospital room tonight.
Ann's not that happy, nor am I. After being so close to loosing each other we would really like to spend as much time together as possible. But we both know it's for the best and I begin making a list of things to get from the apartment and bring to her tomorrow.Ann has had a small cough for the last day so they decided to shoot saline up her nose and have her sneeze into a cup. The contents of the cup would then be cultured to see what bug she may have picked up. The entire procedure went over about as well as you can imagine.
We got to eat diner together again before her admission and it was nice to be able to look at her face to face and give her a kiss on the mouth and cheek. Its been almost a month since we where able to do that and I'll never take that simple act for granted ever again. Once she goes into PE again for chemo I will have to wear a mask whenever I'm in the room with her and that kind of intimacy will be to risky for her immune system.
Finally she got admitted to the PE Wing of the Hospital, room G1263 at about 8:00 pm and will be there for the next 7 days while she undergoes the 2nd round of the Hyper-CVAD chemotherapy. I'm lonely without her, but I am more hopeful each day and thank God that a place like MD Anderson and the good people who work there be they Doctors, Nurses, or Anyone and Everyone on staff exists.
Oh, and just so you don't think I forgot...Ann got her Golden Ticket after all. She will have to wait 7 Days to use it but it's all hers.
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