Wig of the Month

Day 98

Today we are back for the usual routine of blood tests and Doctors visits at MDA. Some of the technicians that we have seen over the past 98 days have gotten a bit more familiar with us, and we have managed to coax a few of them into having their picture taken.

This lady is the phlebotomist (person who collects blood samples). She is from Ethiopia and is very sweet and nice. She always manages to be perky, which is hard to do considering the number of patients she as to draw blood from in the early morning. It's not unusual for her to have 40 to 50 patients lined up waiting to get stuck or give a blood sample. In the picture you can also see her pulling blood from Ann's CVC.

After giving blood the next stop is to have your vitals taken. They do this so often at MDA I'm surprised that they just don't take your vitals automatically when you enter the building. The person who is in charge of this at the leukemia clinic is Miss Nancy. She is a native of Crowley and just lit up when she found out we where from Louisiana too. Ann has promised her we will cook Coq Au Vin with egg noodles for her as soon as we get some free time and Ann is allowed to handle food again. Miss Nancy is always interested in talking or telling a story. She is passionate about the patients she sees and treats them all like family.

After vitals its on to see Dr. Thomas' nurse, Miriam. She goes over the routine information and gets all of Ann's information straight. You can't tell in this photo but she was nervous about getting her picture taken. I think she is kinda shy in person.

Normally after Miriam sees us we wait for a bit and see one of the leukemia department's PAs Lori, Lizzy, Rodney or Tiffany. Ann's favorite is Lori. Lori did stop in for an "informal" visit to and to congratulate us on moving on to transplant. She is the the most professional and attentive PA at MDA hands down. Thats not to say that there are bad ones, just that Lori really does shine in her job.

She is always smiling and really sets Ann at ease. For example Lori did Ann's first lumbar puncture and she was pretty freaked out about it until Lori talked to her and set her at ease.

After our clinic visit we had a few more things to take care of at MDA. In the process we ran into more than a few people, both patients and staff, who saw our stories on KHOU 11. The picture to the left is of a fellow leukemia patient who recognized us.

It turns out that she has AML and has just recently relapsed. Her circumstances are similar to Ann's in that she has no adult donor and will have to have a double cord blood transplant too. If things turn out correctly then Ann and her will be going to transplant at the same time. I knew that there were more people like Ann whose genetics was rare enough that they absolutely had to use cord blood because they didn't have any other choice, but it was a startling experience to meet one. All I can say is that it's humbling to see that your problems are not as unique as you once imagined they were.

Considering all the stress that we have been under Ann wanted to blow of a little steam today and do something that we thought everyone would get a kick out of. Keep in mind that a cancer hospital is never the funnest or happiest place in the world, so our options are extremely limited.

So we came up with the idea of doing a little thing we call "Wig of the Month". MDA has a beauty shop with a vast collection of wigs that run the gambit for everything from Tina Turner to Rick James, and normal ones too. Ann picked out one she thought looked "plausible", although I was pushing for the Tina Turner "Private Dancer" one, and well... tada!