Hello blogger world –

First things first. Thank you all so much for the huge showing of support. It was a great thing to check the blog throughout out the day and see how many people and who had left a comment. From students, to friends I haven’t seen in a while, to all those friends of Caroline. (It sounds like a charity group…the Friends of Caroline. Oh. There is the newest competition. If there were a charity group called the Friends of Caroline…what would they support?)
I am currently sitting in a lovely reclining chair, in a quiet corner of the Dana Farber infusion room, waiting for a nurse to come back with papers for me to sign. “Wait!” You say. “Why am I sitting in an infusion room? “ You thought my treatments were over. There was nothing else. Well, this is true. I have finished all my chemo treatments, but Dana Farber had this study that I qualified for.
One of the problems with an allogeniec stem cell transplant is the possibility of chronic graft vs. host. (GVHD) I am currently on immunosuppressants to stop Katrina’s immune system from attacking my organs as a foreign body. However, there is a possibility in the future, once they decrease the amount of immunosuppressant I’m on, that she will get overly excited and start attacking a kidney ..or a liver.
One of the things the Doctors have noticed is that if you give a patient with chronic GVHD, rituxan, it alleviates the symptoms. So, the question is, if they give rituxan prior to the establishment of GVHD, will it be prevented. So, here I am, waiting to receive a 4+ hour drip of rituxan. And why am I waiting, when they knew that I would be here? Well, for the second week in a row, my bloods came back with a high hormone count. Specifically, the one that indicates pregnancy. And no matter how many times I try to assure the doctor that at the time there is no chance that I am pregnant, they still need to have it run by a GYN doctor to get his opinion. (Apparently, my opinion and assurance don’t count for anything.) So, here we wait for the start. And as I write this, I am also down loading some Christmas carols. Including “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas”. Speaking of white, Mom and I actually drove up yesterday. It was miserable. Our usual 3 hour drive took us 6 hours. By the time we saw the third car off the road, I was tempted to tell mom to just turn us around and go home. And we still had another 3.5 hours to go. It was just….BAD. Really Bad.
When we got to Erica and Drew’s last night, we were greeted with a glass of bailys. That was nice. Their house looks really nice. They have the sweetest tree and, since they have a fire place, they have decorated it with garland and nutcrackers. The also have a giant, 6 foot pile of snow in the front yard from shoveling out their cars. (It would make a great snow fort.) OK. That’s all for this update. I’ll catch you again before Christmas. Enjoy the music. (Smiles her evil smile and gives her evil “tee hee”)
-Elizabeth