morrowlife

Here’s an old church.  Beautiful old place., isn’t it?  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken … umm … somewhere … I think it’s downtown Philadelphia … maybe LRN4 remembers, taken last September, and part of my famous Architecture series.

Do you remember where we saw this place, LRN4?  Maybe our Philly architecture tour?

Another great day.  LRN29 came up from San Diego, as is her wont on Tuesdays.  Thanks, LRN29!  She accompanied LRN4 to her daily clinic appointment at 8:00.  After they got back, I left them to their own devices for a couple hours while I went back to Cousin Betsy’s house to pick up my forgotten computer.  Picking up the computer didn’t take two hours per se, but I also took the opportunity to help Betsy finish getting her shiny new MacBook Pro set up.  Last night, I got the transfer of her old files from their old PC started.  It finished overnight, but moved all the files into two new user accounts.  Today’s activities involved moving the files from the PC-based accounts to Betsy’s Mac-based account.  Took a little while, but it went well.  There may be a little cleanup left to do, but I’m pretty sure we’ll get together again sometime before LRN4 and I go home.  And thanks again for the great dinner and birthday party yesterday, Betsy and Bob!  It felt really great to get out and do something normal.

Any thoughts from my Loyal Readers as to how I should spend the Amazon and iTunes gift cards I received for my birthday?  I want to buy the funnest things there!

Spent the afternoon not doing much.  LRN4 took a much-needed nap that stretched from the planned half hour to I’m not sure how long.  I think she feels a bit better for it.  We had an excellent chicken dinner and watched a few episodes of [amazon asin=B002N5N4DA&text=Drop Dead Diva] this evening.  LRN16 sent us a few seasons of the show, which we had never heard of before.  One-sentence review: it’s fun!

A little bit of additional information on yesterday’s great news (excerpt from a note I sent the family yesterday): [LRN4]’s white blood count is 4,900 cells/microliter today.  That’s well within the normal range.  Her neutrophil count is normal as well.  The lymphocyte count is still low, but that’s expected.  The anti-rejection medication she’s taking keeps that number low.  The result is that she’s more susceptible to viral infections than normal, but she’s taking medication for that.  Last week’s viral infection test came back negative.  Her red cells and platelets are coming up a bit more slowly, but are well within the normal recovery limits.  She may need to continue to get transfusions for a bit, though.

My mom and LRN9 arrive tomorrow night!  We won’t see them until Thursday morning, but we’re getting excited for their visit.  Sometime on Thursday, LRN23 and my new sister-in-law arrive!  Then, on Saturday, LRN17 is coming!  Lots of Loyal Reader visits.  I can’t wait to see everybody.  We need to figure out what we’re going to do for food, but we’ll work it out.  LRN4 isn’t supposed to eat in restaurants for a few months, so we need to make all of her food here.  Unfortunately, the apartment isn’t really a good place for a crowd.  We might end up going over to the clubhouse here at the Village to eat.  Or maybe we’ll just make it work in the apartment.  Or possibly something else.

And that’s about it for today.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: aiding and abetting fox and boar.  Two positions are open.

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a pretty pink rose we saw the other evening as we walked through the hospital’s rose garden.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Garden series.

The rose garden is a beautiful place.  They appear to plant every year’s award-winning roses.  It’s a large enough garden that they have several of each plant and many, many years’ worth.  Highly recommended.

Had a great day today.  The greatest day ever, in fact.  During our afternoon visit with our doctor, we learned that LRN4 is in remission!  He said there are no cancerous cells in her bone marrow.  Combine that with Thursday’s notification that her spinal fluid is cancer-free and we’re in amazing shape.  As mentioned in my note to our family this afternoon, tears were shed.  We’re still kind of in shock.  There is still road ahead of us, but today was a day we’ve been awaiting for a long, long time.  June 10, 2013 will be a day to remember.

Spent the evening at our previously-arranged joint birthday party with my cousin Betsy.  Her sister Cindy came over along with her daughter Julianna and Julianna’s husband Rick.  We had an outstanding dinner prepared by Bob, an excellent chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting prepared by Betsy, and hours of enjoyable conversation.  It was a great evening.  They even gave me some great gift cards from amazon.com and iTunes!  I can’t wait to figure out what to buy with them.

And that’s it for today.  The good news overwhelms everything else.  So I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: watermelon assault!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a bunch of metal chairs out on the lawn here at the City of Hope.  At night.  I noticed them out there on my way back to the car at 9:20 PM after a day at the hospital with LRN4.  Great art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken on May 29, 2013, and part of my exclusive Statue series.

Claim: a large enough group of chairs together at the same time at night constitutes a statue.  Dissenting opinions may be registered in the comments section below and will be ignored.  They’re a statue.

The happiest day of the year is here!  Hence, the Very Special Saturday Edition of the blog.  Happy birthday to me!  It was a very pleasant day – sunny and warm but not too hot.  We spent a pretty substantial part of the day sitting in our plastic Adirondack chairs in the shade of the front porch reading from and writing to our computers and maybe a book or two.  That may sound a little dull, but it was an outstanding afternoon.  Trust me on this.

While we were out on the porch, we also took the opportunity to open my extravagant gifts and the numerous cards I received from family and friends all over the world.  What a haul!

Actually, I received a lovely miniature [amazon asin=B0000645YL&text=food processor] from LRN4 and a delightful [amazon asin=1599550423&text=book] from my kind parents-in-law, signed by the author, who is a friend of theirs.  I read a few of the poems already and they’re really touching.  Thanks for that great book, in-laws!  And thanks for the cool food processor, LRN4!

LRN4 already checked out the food processor for me.  She made me a mango, apricot, banana, and coconut milk smoothie.  It was delicious.  I see the road ahead paved with smoothies.  She also made me an outstanding devil’s food cake with powdered sugar instead of frosting.  I’ve had two pieces – lunch and dinner – and can safely say it’s a perfect cake.

We were supposed to go to my cousin Betsy’s for dinner, presents, and cake, but she called last night and canceled, as mentioned yesterday.  So more cake and presents on Monday!

Oh, did I mention to my Loyal Readers that I’m an Amazon affiliate?  If they click on any of my Amazon links and then buy anything from Amazon during that session, I get a little kickback and it costs them nothing.  At least that’s what happens if I managed to set up the links correctly.  Not that I’m asking anyone to do that, of course.  Just thought I’d mention it as a matter of passing interest.

Okay, LRN4’s condition.  Unchanged.  She’s feeling good and doing well.  She still has a long way to go to build back up here strength, so we need to start walking a bit more often.  Heaven knows I also have a long way to go to build up my strength and build down my fat.  We did walk back and forth to the clinic again today, but that was it.  We also made it to the post office and grocery store (had to buy that devil’s food cake mix) and that was about it.  Blood test tomorrow to see how LRN4’s levels are, followed by another blood test and doctor visit on Monday to see what he’s going to do about it and possibly find out the results of Thursday’s bone marrow biopsy.  That’ll be a very important day and I must say we’re both just a bit nervous about it.  Cautiously optimistic might be a better term.

Welcome to new Loyal Reader Tonya – her name is immortalized over there on the right as Loyal Reader Number 31!  Use your newfound fame for good, LRN31.

And that’s about it for today.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: ice cream assault!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a rare picture of the Loyal Blogger, celebrating National Donut Day (note the conflicting spelling between the Wikipedia article and the poster – I believe both are correct – at least that’s what the dictionary says – what’s your opinion, Loyal Readers?) the right way: with a fresh lemon-jelly-filled donut.  Great Art by LRN4, courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, and part of my famous Event series.

Pretty good day today.  We got out a bit in the morning, after the morning infusion.  Went to the post office (received a birthday card – I assume, anyway – from LRN23 to add to my amazing pile of extravagant cards and gifts), stopped in at the donut shop next door for a few minutes to celebrate, and went to Wally World to exchange some inappropriately-fitting pants we bought for LRN4, buy some additional pants for her, and buy some shirts for me to replace a few hideously worn out ones LRN4 has convinced me to get rid of.  I like the stuff we got.  Then we went to the local library, talked our way into library cards (actually, it was easy – they pretty much give them to anybody in the hospital), browsed, and checked out a bunch of books.  I think LRN4 is back to work!  I, on the other hand, did no work.  Then we came home and spent the day quietly.

Tomorrow’s the happiest day of the year!  That’s right, Loyal Readers, it’s Morrow’s Birthday!  It’ll be on the calendar someday, but in the meantime, please celebrate irresponsibly.  I plan to.  Might even get another donut.  We were scheduled to spend the evening with my cousin Betsy and her husband Bob at their home for a joint birthday party for Betsy and me.  However, she called this evening to let me know she’s not feeling completely well, so we postponed it to Monday.  Or possibly later.  It would be kind of a shame to make LRN4 sick for a birthday party, even if it is the happiest party of the year.

So tonight is Morrow’s Birthday Eve.  LRN4 and I are observing it by reading and watching [amazon asin=B005D0OHA6&text=The King of Queens], [amazon asin=B00BT1XCOU&text=How I Met Your Mother], [amazon asin=B0090PX7KQ&text=Jeopardy], [amazon asin=B000REQRAG&text=Wheel of Fortune], and [amazon asin=B003WVJ65Y&text=Monk].  Quite an evening.

No news on LRN4’s health outlook, of course.  We won’t get another blood draw until Sunday, so we wait.

And that’s it for tonight.  Just a reminder for new readers of the blog – there are no updates on weekends.  Check out that motto up there at the top of the page.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: Crustacean Combat!

Here’s a statue in the waiting room where LRN4 is getting her daily treatments now.  Definitely indoor art.  Kind of reminds me of a harp.  Or maybe a bone.  Or possibly a piece of wood with holes in it.  Or maybe it’s a metaphor for tranquility.  What do you think it represents, Loyal Readers?  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken here at the City of Hope, and part of my famous Statue series.

I like statues.  And there are a lot of them around here.

Pretty good day for LRN4.  We took a very long walk this evening and managed to include a couple of trips up and down about 30 steps, which is really good for her.  Doesn’t do me much bad either.

We visited LRN4’s doctor this afternoon.  He did the long-awaited bone marrow biopsy, for which we should get the results on Monday or Tuesday.  Nails being bitten.  He has also started dealing with something that concerns us a bit – her white cell and neutrophil counts are both down a pretty serious amount.  There could be various explanations: she could have a viral infection, so they drew more blood to check for that; there could be something going wrong with the transplant and today’s biopsy should give us insight into that possibility; and it could just be what her body is going to do – the doctor has another patient whose levels rose at first, dropped down pretty far, and finally went back up about five months later.  So we’ll see.  In the meantime, we wait.  Not happy about that.

If she has a virus, she may have to go back into the hospital for a couple of days.  That’s no fun, but not a really big deal.  The big downside of that possibility is that we might get kicked out of the village for those two days.  The doctor says it might not happen, but we do need to be prepared for that event.  I would probably go back to the Residence Inn, where there’s a full-size refrigerator; we have a bunch of food in the fridge that I would hate to lose, and the Residence Inn is the only place I could keep it all.

In any case, things will be fine, but I’m really getting comfortable here and would hate to leave and then come right back.  I’m also not happy at all with what seems like possibly a setback for LRN4.  Stay tuned.

Otherwise, situation normal.  We spent all day on campus.  It was peaceful and relaxing, although it took us three trips to the clinic to get everything done.  They gave LRN4 her anti-fungal IV and drew blood at 8:00 and then called her back at about 11:00 for platelets in preparation for the biopsy.  And then we went back to 1:30 for the biopsy, virus check, and chat with the doctor.  They’ll check her blood again on Sunday, followed by our Monday doctor visit.

Welcome back to LRN16, who reports she’s reading the blog again.  Good to have you back!

Okay, that’s it for today.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: Del Taco stabbing!

See you tomorrow.