I've been "Typed"!

Dear Family and Friends,

I've been "Typed"!

Sounds weird huh?  But it's a good thing.  Got a call from my oncologist on Monday and he was concerned that my red blood cells were so low.  Time for a blood transfusion.  Tuesday I went to Kaiser and got "typed".  They actually put a yellow band on your wrist and tell you to keep it on even after you get the blood.  So today I received 700ml of "A Positive" blood.  How do you thank all those kind people who choose to give blood just to help others?  I FEEL GREAT!  The best I've felt in months!  I think as you go through chemo, little things change in your body, but it happens slowly, you deal with it and look for the next challenge/hurdle to climb over.  Now that I look back on my past blood results, my white cells have been a concern because they are the infection fighters and without them I have no immune system.  But the red blood cells have been slowly decreasing and those little buggers are the ones that feed oxygen to all your organs and keep you going.  Yes I've been tired, I've had headaches now and then, I get winded doing little things and basically my body was not getting the oxygen it needed via the red blood cells.  Dr Brown had told us that if the red blood cells were very low, I wouldn't be able to tolerate the altitude at the cabin (9200 feet) since oxygen is even scarcer at that altitude.  So… as I see it, this blood transfusion today was a blessing in paving the way for our trip to the cabin on Saturday!!!  Yeah!!!  It's also a blessing from the kind people (two of them) who so lovingly gave their blood to help me and others.  Wow…. 

Upcoming dates…  This Friday we do another blood test and that one should come out good since I've finished the 10 Neupogen shots (thank goodness, those things burn!) which help boost my white blood cells and after the blood transfusion today, that will boost my red blood cells.  Plans are to head to the cabin on Saturday 7/06 (Brother George's birthday!) and come home on Saturday 7/13.  Then on Monday 7/15 I go get "Joey" again.  Yuck, yuck, yuck….  Joey and I will be best friends for a week as I take on my fourth session of chemo.  Don't have the dates set yet, but after this session of chemo we are doing another PET Scan and that will tell us what the future holds.  If I understand the doctor correctly, at that point we will make a decision to stop everything and wait and see how it goes, or we will try for two more sessions of the R-EPOCH which will complete the total of six sessions, or we will start the process for a stem cell transplant.  I have feelings on what I wish would happen, but at this point it really is in God's hands and they are very, very capable hands. 

Have a wonderful Independence Day everyone and God bless you all!

Mugsy

P.S.  For those who prefer the blog:  http://updatefrommugsy.blogspot.com/