Anticipation

We are sitting in the waiting room at JOA on Wednesday morning, having just had my blood drawn for my twice a week CBC tests. One of our favorite nurses, Angela, did the blood draw. I will see a different nurse next to discuss the test results. It normally takes between 15 to 30 minutes after my blood is drawn before my results are available. This morning, the clinic is busy with a lot of chemo patients so this may be a very long wait.

My anticipation is whether or not we will be able to leave tomorrow for MDA for my Friday through Tuesday treatments. Last week we got postponed because my blood counts were too low for me to do the next round. So today we face the same possibility. Janine wants us to go no matter what my counts show because we really need to talk to my Doctors about several things. As usual, she is right!

On a positive note, I spoke with my MDA Stem Cell Transplant Coordinator, Lori Griffin, yesterday. She told me they have two very strong match possibilities, one of which has already been contacted and has submitted their blood to my team for further testing. She was very optimistic this one will be an exact match, but could not say for sure until the blood testing is completed this Friday or next Monday. So our "anticipation" is for this outcome, as well. I try not to get too excited because it is such a specific science, and the process may rule this person out, even if they match due to any number of reasons. The other strong person for a match has not been tested yet, so they may only get contacted if the first one is not a match or ends up being unavailable to donate. That process is very donor dependent. We are pretty much at their mercy and just have to patiently wait for the coordinator to get everything lined up. We also set up a new appointment with Dr. Jones, our Stem Cell Transplant  physician for Tuesday morning of next week to further explore the process and be more closely examined to get me healthy for the coming transplant.

We are now home from JOA with the latest blood test results that were not improved, even a bit lower than on Monday of this week. Luckily, it didn't take as long as I thought. No infusions of red blood or platelets were needed, too. So we just continue gettting ready for tomorrow's road-trip to Houston with "Anticipation".