My Donor is Here!!

My brother George has arrived safely from Australia. It was a long flight and he is a bit jet lagged, but assures me that his bone marrow is in good shape - ha ha!  We have lots of jokes going on right now as you might imagine.  George teases mom for saying "Don't get hit by a car."  Like it was ok for him to get hit before, but now that we need his marrow he better not.....

Since today was Brant's first day of his new job, George rode with me up to Richmond for my cardiology consult.  I have a left ventricle ejection fraction (LVEF) of 47% which is slightly low - they like that above 50%.  I also showed 10% damage to the bottom area of the heart, which is considered "moderate" damage.  So he wants to do an angiogram to make sure there is not a blockage in the coronary arteries causing the problems.  He suspects it is chemo that has caused the heart damage, but I did have radiation to the chest for my Hodgkins treatment and that can cause hardening of the arteries.  Better to find out now than to have problems during the stress that will be placed on my system during the transplant process.  So I will be up there Friday for that procedure.  If everything looks good I will have an admit date of July 25th.  If they find a problem they will put in a stint during the same procedure and my transplant date will likely be pushed back.  It's not really what I was hoping to find out today, but I am glad they are able to work so quickly to get everything done and to minimize the risk of complications as much as possible.

Over the weekend we headed down to the Outer Banks with the kids.  This is supposed to be our annual vacation week we take with four other families in a great big cottage.  Brant and I stayed Saturday night and left Sunday afternoon.  That was just enough time to get on the beach twice, enjoy some good company, and to have my very own martini invented and prepared by the world's best bartender.  Thanks Ron, I think, for the "Dirty Rachel".  The kids will stay for the rest of the week with the beach crew - THANK YOU!  We love you guys and wish we were there to enjoy the beach and everyone's fantastic cooking!! We are looking forward to next year when we will double up on the relaxation and fun to make up for this year.