I just wanted to wish everyone a very safe and very Happy New Year!

If you make just one resolution this year, please register with the NMDP if you haven't already. Order a kit and potentially save a life. Registering only takes a few minutes and it only involves swabbing the inside of your cheek. No needles, no pain. There are so many people waiting for a bone marrow transplant and you could potentially be the one to save a life. Imagine getting to be someone's superhero and all you had to do was exist.

Susan wrote a really great article and blog post about the need. You should check it out.

I'll probably be asleep before 11pm, so raise a glass for me! :)

Yesterday, I had the house to myself for the better part of the day. Dixie was at work and Chris was running errands. The cats were milling around pretending not to be interested in anything outside their little spheres of being.

I managed to sit still for all of an hour before testing my knees and venturing out into the rest of the house. There are days when I've had a bad night with the knees that it feels like bone grinding on bone while walking. There have been a few occasions when I've had to prop myself up on counters just to do something so mundane as brushing my teeth.

I installed myself on the couch with some knitting and stayed put until everyone got home. It drove me crazy to have to sit still with my legs stretched out in front of me. Since we've returned to Dixie's I've been more active. I'm relearning the limits of my ability and learning when I need to rest and when I need to push myself. The learning curve isn't steep, but it can be frustrating.

Last night I managed to sleep through the night with no knee/ankle problems. Today, I feel like a whole person. I'm sure I'll over do it and pay for it tomorrow, but right now it just feels nice to be doing something.

Sorry for the lack in posting, but the internet connection has been very intermittent. Chris joked that it was like living in the 80's again. Sad to say, but I discovered that I'm addicted to the connection.

Things have remained relatively quiet save for one recurring problem. I haven't mentioned it before, but after my last visit with the GvHD specialist, I developed some serious pain in my knees. I awoke the night after the visit in agony with a throbbing ache in my right knee. It felt like I had hyper-extended it, then whacked it with a mallet for good measure. The knee was swollen with a small bruise on it. Chris applied ice to it and after a few hours I was able to sleep again in relative comfort.

Each night after, I would wake up around the same time to the same pain, except now it had hold of both knees. It resolved a few days after we got back to Baton Rouge and my doctor is aware of it. I've been able to sleep through the night with no problems for the last three nights. Last night, not so much. My knees are currently still bothering me, so Chris has ordered that I stay in bed and not move around. Easier said than done.

My doctor told me to head to the ER if the pain becomes unbearable. If I can live with it, she'll take a look at it on the fifth when I go in for a check up. I'll just wait. Until then, I'm trying not to think of what it could be or might be. It is what it is and no amount of fretting on my part is going to change anything.

Back Home

This is a very short update as we are both dog tired and have lots of unpacking to do. We made it back to Baton Rouge last night and couldn’t be happier to be here. No doctor's appointments until the first part of January, when we will be returning to MDA for a check-up. No thinking about that for the moment.

Right now we are figuring out where to put all our stuff and planning a Christmas dinner.

I forgot to say a very big heartfelt thank you to everyone who follows our blog. Thank you for the comments and encouragement. We'll never be able to express how much it means to us and how reassuring it is to know we're not alone in all of this.

NO BLASTS TODAY!

Dr. Kebriaei's nurse, Cathy, is an absolute gem and got us a copy of my labs early so we didn't have to wait in agonizing suspense. I must have scanned the pages a hundred times looking for the dreaded words "blasts present". Nothing. Thank you, God.

My WBC count and ANC is still high, but it's down from Wednesday. My lymphocytes have doubled from the last time, which is also a relief. The other counts are holding steady and my liver enzymes are mostly normal. As an added bonus, my magnesium is normal.

We don't have a definitive reason for Wednesday's numbers. Dr. Kebriaei is leaning toward the theory that it has something to do with the steroids that I'm on. She also looked back at my records and noted that my WBC count has been as high as 20 for no explicable reason. I'm just a freak of nature.

I've dodged the proverbial bullet today and can guarantee that I'll be walking around in a fog for the next month or so. I'm so relieved that I can't function which is bad news for me, since Dr. Kebriaei told us to leave Houston. She told us to get out of town and go home. This definitely caught us by surprise and since I was resigned to staying here through the new year, I made Chris go grocery shopping. There's enough food for the next two weeks. One day I'll learn the rhythm of this game and arrange my juju accordingly.

Two years ago today the first outward symptom of my cancer to make me sit up and take notice appeared. It was a small swollen lymph node on my neck just behind my right ear. Why this one little "thing" was what made me call the doctor, I'll never know. For weeks leading up to this event I was suffering from severe fatigue, migraines, a swollen stomach, poor appetite, and diarrhea. I managed to explain all of these things away with excuses like working forty plus hours a week in addition to carrying a full time load at school. I had projects galore to finish and was in the midst of finals. I worked in the retail world and we were ensconced in the holidays. It meant for a lot of pressure. Add to all of this that Chris and I were caring for a pet with terminal cancer who we were not ready to let go.

Wednesday, when I got my CBC results I was speechless. What Chris didn't mention in the last post is that my doctor put forward the possibility that I was relapsing. She was very somber and said that she was sorry. Me too.

I'm having a hard time believing that I managed to survive two very difficult transplants only to have my original cancer come back. Let me be very clear that as of this moment we don't know for a fact that the ALL is back, but as my doctor said, my subtype is very aggressive and comes back very quickly. We may know today, or we may not.

I've been feeling very angry over the last two days. I have absolutely no control over this situation and having to stand by and watch people that I love suffer through this with me is tearing my heart out. To add insult to injury, I feel really well. I'm not manifesting any outward symptoms of illness. My appetite is good and my energy levels are normal. Inside, I know something's brewing in my chemistry. My white blood cell count is rocketing, as is my absolute neutrophil count. Then there's the mystery of the blasts circulating in my blood. I want off of this ride, but that's not possible.

I took a moment the other day to think about all of the treatment that I've had in the last two years and realized that there have only been four months that I haven't had active chemo. That's a lot of chemicals saturating my organs, which makes me wonder if I'm a candidate for any more. If I have relapsed, I don't know what my options are. I'm only 105 days out from my last transplant which leads me to believe that there isn't a lot left open to me. There is only so much the body can take before it starts to shut down and to be frank, if my cancer is back after only 100 days who's to say it won't come back again more vicious a week after the next treatment.

I have labs at 11:30am today and then a follow up with Dr. Kebriaei at 1:30pm. I know anything can happen and that it's only been two days since my last labs. My numbers will either be close to what they were on Wednesday, or significantly higher. If the past is any indicator and I am relapsing, then the blasts will have increased ten fold. I have a microscopic granule of hope that I'm just being dramatic and this is all really nothing, but I'm faced with the reality that there's a reason that I don't know a lot of ALL, t(4;11) survivors who were diagnosed as adults. Truth be known, I'm the only one that I'm aware of right now.