Update 3/30/2012

     I am tired so this will be short. Today was a very stressful day for everyone. Gennie has been having a very difficult time. When I left her last night she seemed to be doing a bit better. When I got to the hospital today there were several people in her room looking very concerned. It seems she had complained about chest pains. The entire day was spent to determine what was going on. She saw liver doctors, cardiologist, ICU doctors, her regular bone marrow doctors and have several EKG's, chest xrays, ultrasounds, CT scans and I am sure I am forgetting some others. It was determined she has had some sort of heart event. Maybe a small heart attack. Part of her heart is not functioning at full capacity. She is also have major difficulty talking and processing thoughts. She is also having trouble with motor skills, moving her arms pressing the button on her pain management machine etc... By early evening they decided to move her to CCU. The problem with this is they do not see bone marrow patients often and really can not do the normal procedures on them they would do for heart patients. Because of her low platelets and other blood counts they can not use blood thinners. They also can not use a catheter if a problem arises. She is mostly there so they can monitor her heart and try and figure out what happened. They also told me they would probably call in the neurologist tomorrow to see if they have anything to offer. I was told that the bone marrow doctors are still driving the bus and that gave me some comfort. They need to protect those cells and make sure everyone is aware of that. It is no small task.
     I am home now and will try and get some sleep. Whenever I wake I will head back to the hospital. Shannon came up there this afternoon to be with me and near her Mom. It was great to have her there. I also spoke with Jason often and am trying to keep him abreast of what is happening. It is difficult for him being so far away and I worry about him also. Shannon is going to contact a few folks this weekend and try and get some help moving some of our stuff to our apartment in Richmond. I need to be closer to the hospital right now and that will be a big help.
     I am sorry this is not a better report but hopefully by tomorrow night I will have better news to write about. As always thank you for your thoughts and prayers.
That's all for now, Bob

Quick update

Gennie's transplant took about seven hours yesterday. There were a few complications that came up. Shortly after they started she developed the shakes (rigor). Then her blood pressure got crazy. Then her heart rate went way up. All of this and a few more things happened all at once. These folks here are amazing and just took care of business. They quickly decided that having Gennie get up every fifteen minutes of so to try and go to bathroom was a little to risky. Therefore they put in a cathiter. This eliminates the getting up on her feet part. Last night they took an ultrasound of her blatter. I asked them to send me a copy in an e-mail so we could be like all of the kids these days and post it on facebook. She said she would but she didn't. Oh well. We are having twins!!!! Very cool. The next thing to go ahywire was her blood oxygen. She is now on oxygen trying to keep that up. It was a long night and Gennie made them work for their pay last night. This whole time she was feeling fine and on some pretty good drugs. She was alert and helpful as she could be. My part as caregiver in all of this was to be there and keep an eye on the monitors. This went on most of the night and I finally got some sllep around 5:30 till 8. I will see the doctor around 11 this morning and he will explain to me what they plan to do to help with this water retention. This problem can cause problems for her liver and that need to be addressed. Now that is a lot to take in but let me assure you this is nothing they have not seen before and they will deal with it. The best part of yesterday is that the transplant is complete and now it is on to engraphment. We should start to see evidence of that sometime around day 7 to 10. That will bring on a whole new list of complications but as they say every journey begins with the first step. We have taken that step and are ready for more. I know most everyone is following my post on facebook but I want to continue this blog for myself and those who want to follow here. Sometimes I feel like facebook is so public and maybe it sounds like I am asking for sympathy when I post there. I can assure you this is not my intent. We are very glad to have the support but in no way want anyone feeling sorry for us. We are thrilled to have this course of action available to us. We will take everything is stride and with the help of these wonderful people here at MCV and the support of all of you and others we will make it. Gennie has started her recovery yesterday and is ready to continue to fight through this. I will be right there with her for the entire recovery looking forward to her new lease on life. Speaking of leases, try and rent an apartment when you don't have a job. It is a hoot. We have one now but that is a whole other story. Well that is all for now. I am going back upstairs to see the doctor. As always thanks for the thoughts and prayers the are very welcome. Bye for now, Bob ps... Way to go Joyce!!!!!! We are so very happy for you.

Gennie's rebirthday!!!

     March 27th 2012 will be Gennie's Rebirthday!!!

     Everyone is invited to help us celebrate Gennie's rebirth. On Tuesday the 27th of this month courtesy of her brother (our hero), Gennie will be given a second chance at a cancer free life. She will be admitted to the hospital on the 19th and chemo treatments will begin the next day. It will only take a few days to kill off her immune system. On the 26th Spud will have his stem cells harvested and on the 27th they will be transplanted in Gennie. 

     Today we had several meetings with folks at MCV to discuss everything from who is going to pay for this to life after transplant for the next five years. The first meeting was for Gennie to have more blood test done and turn in her pee bucket. For the twenty four hours prior to her visit she had to collect her pee to be studied and tested. The next time you feel like complaining about your job remember you could be a pee tester. Come to think of it it probably pays better and has better benefits than what I did for thirty five years and it sort of looks like beer. Sorry tangent. The second meeting was to determine who is going to pay for this. It seems all is in order on that front. Thankfully. It only cost the two of us $24000.00 a year to have health insurance and for once I don't mind. Sorry again, random thought. The third meeting was with the Doctor who had Gennie sign all the consent forms. He explained all sorts of things. To many to mention or remember. All are facinating and awesome. One is that they will keep a sample of Gennie's blood and DNA frozen for maybe twenty five years. This is in case sometime in the future they discover something and it relates back to her case they can ask for that sample and with future technology they can determine what was unique about her DNA or blood. Pretty cool. However it has it's drawbacks. If she desides to murder me she is going to be caught. She is on file now. I feel so much safer now. The doctor told Gennie she will be under the care of a team of 85 doctors, nurses, caregivers and support people all with the sole goal of helping Gennie through this. We have met many of them already and they are great. His pride in his team is apparent and that gives us a good feeling also. Next was on to the post transplant coordinator. She shared with us what life would be like for the reborn Gennie. Without boring you with the details let's just say it will be a little different for a while. In the near future it will mean a move to Richmond for atleast six months. Once released from the hospital in about thirty days it will be daily visits to the hospital for about six hours a day. They will be checking everything every day. Rather than try to explain what they will be looking for I will keep you informed as it happens. When they say we can move home to Poquoson it will mean frequent trips back to Richmond for more test. Right now we are not sure how frequent, she probably told us but I forget. She did say we will be going to MCV for years in the future. I really should buy a Prius. We spent almost two hours with her. To much to remember but she said there would not be a test. Then on to our pretransplant coordinator. She is the one who gave us the schedule. Her name is Judy and she is great. She did not keep us to long as we were saturated with new knowledge. As my mother use to say Gennie is "wound up like an eight day clock". Judy saw this and got the doctor to prescribe meds to help. She will start on them tomorrow.  It was a long and insightfull day, but we are ready.

     We did not learn anything today that caught us offguard except, we are not going to be able to take our little Jazzy to Richmond with us. This is going to be difficult but we will work it out. We have had a few friends offer to help us if this occured. We are hesitant to ask anyone to take this on but we are going to have to impose. Another difficult part of this is the seperation from our family and friends. During the hospital stay Gennie is technically allowed to have visitors as long as they are completely healthy and have only been around healthy people. OK, I am going to make this easy on everyone. She is only going to be in the hospital for thirty days. Many of those days she is not going to be feeling her best. I am asking that if you would like to visit please wait until we move in to our apartment. Then if you would call me we would be happy to have you visit when she is feeling better. Remember for the first thirty days we will be at the hospital for six hours each day. Visits would be best in the late afternoon or evening. You still need to be healthy and wash your hands when you get there. Once the daily visits to MCV stop we will have days off when visitors would be great. The best way to keep intouch with Gennie is e-mail. deadogdottie@yahoo.com She may not get right back to you but believe me she will as soon as she is up to it. She is going to need someone other than just me to bitch at, sorry I mean talk to.

     Thanks for reading and I know many of you are only here to see how my diet is going. No progress from last time. Oh well 200 is nice for now. Still going to 190 but taking a little longer than I thought. My golf game seems to be stuck too. I just hope I live long enough for my golf score to catch up with my age.

     Thanks as always for your thoughts and prayers. That's all for now folks!!!

Bob