June 15th update

Preparations for Carol’s bone marrow transplant continued this week. We met with physicians and nurses that methodically explained and reviewed all the important issues involved with such a delicate procedure.

Also, because of some scheduling issues with the overseas donor, a few more days where needed, so Carol’s admission date is now scheduled for the 30th of June. Prior to her admission, she needs to be at Moffitt the 29th for a “central line” to be placed on her chest and remove her “PICC line” from her arm.

In the meantime she will continue to be seen by her local oncologist (Dr. Chu) for blood work.

Over the weekend Carol took advantage of the beautiful weather and went ROWING.
Yes, in trying to keep her spirits high, she wanted to row, so I helped her to get her shell on the water (as if it was needed) where she met with her friend Becky for a row that started just near the launch area but turned out to be a row all the way to Midnight Pass, where Carol parks her shell and walks to the other side of the dune and voila, she is in the waters of the Gulf. She also went for a spin today with her rowing shell with her friend Jay, who ushered her all the way to midnight pass and back again.

If you look closely, you can see that her left arm is wrapped with a plastic bag to avoid her PICC line getting wet.

Rowing will probably happen again next weekend but this time it will be with her sister Susan, who is arriving on Thursday evening and visiting until Sunday. This is a warning to anyone that tries to contact Carol not to be disappointed if she doesn’t reply until Monday.

Did you know?
The doctor explained that the donor blood type (in this case O+) doesn’t need to be a match of the bone morrow recipient’s (Carol’s type B+) as long as the 10 markers are a match.The curious thing we learned is that a couple of months after the transplant, Carol’s blood type will become O+ because of the donor’s stem cell's blood type origin.
As a side note the doctor also mentioned that in a CSI TV episode, there was a crime committed by someone that left blood and hair traces at the crime scene witch puzzled the investigators because the blood pointed to one individual but the hair to another. The case was solved once it was learned that the person that committed the crime had a bone marrow transplant that modified the blood type. If anything happens to me, please check Carol’s alibi and disregard the blood type.

OK, that’s it for now.
Thank you.
Jaime