Whew! Some Great News!

Jo's tests last week proved one thing - absolutely nothing! The soft spots in the bones of her pelvis and her lower back are nothing more than just soft spots. Soft bone is not a normal condition, but it is most likely just a side effect of her Aplastic Anemia and it is expected to return to normal when Jo's bone marrow production returns to normal. The tests did show her blood production to be at about 5% of normal, which is where she has been for a long time.

All kinds of bad news could have come out of today's meeting with Dr. Alvarez and I think Jo and I both have been keeping our focus anywhere other than on the results of this test. We all sighed a collective sigh of relief when Dr. Alvarez told us the good news - all except for Anna, who was focused like a laser on finishing her bottle.

We did have a conversation with Dr. Alvarez about where we should go from here. Because Jo is feeling strong, looking good and dealing with very little pain, we decided to hold off on any major decisions until after the New Year. No offense to anybody in the medical profession, but the Holiday Season is not exactly the best time of year to get top-notch service at the hospital – you can’t really blame anybody for wanting to be home with family instead of at work.

Dr. Alvarez gave us the okay to travel to TX to see Jo’s family for Christmas, but since her niece and nephews are school-aged, he did ask Jo to wear a mask around the kids. I’m not sure how much luck I will have getting Jo to pose, but I’ll do my best to get some good pictures for the Blog.

(P.S. That last paragraph was very difficult to get through my editor. She says I’ll be finishing the basement of the new house to add another bedroom if any “mask” pictures show up on the Blog.)

I can't wait for Thanksgiving!!! Lot's of SWEET POTATOES! Mom's got her big doctor appointment today to get the results of her biopsy last week. I'll get Dad to do a big update tonight!

Hey Doc! Can I Borrow Your Ball-Peen Hammer?

I took Jo to the hospital this morning at 7:15am. Since she was going to be sedated for her bone marrow biopsy, she was not allowed to drive herself to the hospital or back home. Her procedure was set to begin at 9:00am. Even thought she had gotten extra platelets yesterday, she needed more and everything was delayed.

It takes a couple of hours to have blood prepared for a transfusion, so things didn’t really get rolling until about noon. Again, today’s goal was to use a CT Scan to get a needle into a very specific spot in Jo’s hip and take a sample of the bone marrow. According to the doctor, the spot is about the size of a golf ball.

Jo was very relieved to find out she was going to be sedated. This was her fourth bone marrow biopsy and fortunately only one was without the aid of sedation. Jo said the worst (and funniest) part about today was when the nurse asked the doctor, “Are you going to need a mallet?” His response was, “No, but I will take a stepstool.”

Thank heaven for sedation. Jo remembers seeing the doctor up on the stepstool, banging away with his fist on the needle trying to get it through her bone and she remembers carrying on a conversation with him, but as for pain – nothing significant. She’s pretty sore tonight, but how could she not be? Do you remember Billy Crystal on Saturday Night Live contemplating stuffing a meat thermometer in his ear and pounding it with a ball-peen hammer? "I hate it when that happens."

The procedure took about an hour. The doctor and the nurses would push the needle in a little and then run to the other room to look at the CT scan to see if the needle was headed in the right direction. The end result was 3 half-inch long little red worms that were apparently bone marrow. The doctor seemed very proud.

The results of this test will not be given to us until sometime next week. Jo is scheduled to see Dr. Alvarez next Wednesday and I am sure we will get a full report.

Since Anna was such a good sport with her sweet potatoes, HER FATHER took her to "On The Border" later that night for a little dessert.

Due to popular demand, here is a picture of Anna getting her first taste of sweet potatoes FROM HER MOTHER!

"Gas and Go" Tomorrow

If you don't know what a "gas and go" is, find a NASCAR fan and ask them.

Tomorrow, Jo will get a platelet transfusion to get all pumped up before her bone marrow test on Wednesday. It is important that her platelet counts are high enough to avoid any excess bleeding from her test. The whole thing is a little bitter-sweet. Jo is not excited about the test, but we are all excited to get the results.

For all the Anna fans in the crowd, we have some pictures coming that will absolutely astound and amaze you all! Sometimes, even we forget that Polish children tend to develop much faster than most babies!

Just Another Day at the Infusion Center

Today was one of those long transfusion days - platelets and red blood cells. Overall, Jo was at Swedish for 7 hours. On the bright side, they do have nice, big, cushy chairs that recline, cable television, free lunches and really nice nurses. At the infusion center, Anna's picture is posted on the bulletin board and all the nurses call her the Million Dollar Baby. Many of these nurses have been seeing Jo regularly since last November.

Now we wait. A week from tomorrow, Jo is scheduled for her "directed" bone marrow biopsy to try to explain her MRI results and to see if there has been any change in her bone marrow since the last biopsy.

Anna has been working on Cha-Cha, Salsa and Cuban Motion in her daily dance lessons. When I looked in her diaper this evening and saw what I thought was guacamole, I thought that she had maybe made a trip south of the border for some cooking lessons too. Ay Caramba!

Jo really does look and feel great on a day to day basis. She did want me to say thanks to everybody that has emailed her. We appreciate all your thoughts and prayers!

A Six Poke Day

That's right. Six pokes to get the blood sample and to administer Jo's de-ironing IV medication. Normally, Jo's veins are great and the nurses have no problem starting the IVs, but today wasn't normal. The nurses told Jo she needs to drink more water, but don't we all?

Jo's platelet count was 15,000 and Dr. Alvarez is letting her wait until Monday to get a transfusion - Yippee! This will be Jo's first time to go two weeks without a transfusion since well before the baby was born.

On a lighter note, we had dinner tonight with two F-16 fighter pilots, both from my graduating class at the Air Force Academy. For anyone who wishes they could be a fighter pilot, just imagine flying a 12 hour sortie in a one man cockpit in the middle of the night over Iraq, eating candy bars and talking to anybody on the ground you can find in order to stay awake.