Richard on Monday

*****They've hooked up Richard's last bag of Cytarabine. He should be finished sometime tomorrow morning!
Once that's done, then it's about a 7 day wait in the hospital while he goes "nutrapenic" (sp?) - too tired to look that word up. Basically, his counts will get so low that he'll have almost no immune system, and they'll keep him in the hospital until he's well enough to enter the world again. Anyhow, 7 days or so from Tuesday, he'll get another bone marrow biopsy to check whether or not the chemo seemed to have killed off the Leukemia or the 'bad cells' anyhow. It's possible, believe it or not. We'll keep our fingers crossed. Another 5 days or so later, they'll do another bone marrow biospy, ouch, to see what it's looking like then. Based on those, they'll be deciding whether he'll be going through another round of chemo or if not needed, whatever it is they do when the first round of chemo apparently 'gets it all'.



Richard is doing 'not too bad' today. He's losing weight and has asked for his 'next size down' jean shorts from the closet. Crikies! I'll be visiting him again tomorrow while Erica has the kids (thanks Erica). I think he's looking forward to that, if I may say so myself.

Erica and I took AJ and Jack to their preschool field trip to the zoo today while Kim watched Dex and Rya at our house (thanks Kim). It was really nice to be out without a stroller and diapers and extra food and bottles. We did bail early on the trip to take the boys to the McD's playplace.

More thanks to give:
1. Erica for taking the boys Tuesday this week instead of Monday so I could go on the field trip.
2. Kim for watching 'the babies' today so we could have a stress free zoo trip.
3. Melissa, Grace, and Loren for the awesome care package for our family filled with geeky books and magazines and stuff the boys AND snacks for Daddy and the boys!!
4. Again, another thanks to everyone for everything they've been sending and ways they've been offering to help.
5. Tarrie for lending me his old cell to put my sim card into until I can find out whether or not the drool can dry out of my broken one.
6. Jen for offering to sign up and take AJ to swim lessons for two weeks straight once school's over.

You all overwhelm me. I only hope that I can repay all of you for your kindness, ....... hopefully not under similar circumstances though.

Erica and I were talking lots on the way to and from the zoo and I was saying how much I've been just loving the Starbucks cards. Even before all of this, I've never taken my daily coffee for granted. I've always seen it as a 'special treat' I allow myself every morning. I used to only go about 3 times a week, but once I was back to work in January, I started making my way up to daily. The Starbucks cards that everyone's sent have allowed me to continue to 'treat myself' every morning to my much needed coffee and a little piece of normalcy in my life right now. Thanks to all of you who have 'supplied me' with my daily coffee for the next 5 or 6 weeks! Every morning that I get my coffee, I think, "and this one's from ____________."

Thanks everybody!