It's official, we got the party started today.

We went to the clinic today and the minute we hit the door we saw the spouse of a patient that was here during our last tranplant. I didn't get to speak with her, but she can only be here for one reason. I am so sorry for them and look forward to talking to her.

Our APN is Sara. She used to be Dr. Barlogie's nurse before she moved over to the bone marrow unit. She has always been so sweet to us. There's a special bond between Sara and our family, and she is so great about taking time to teach us things by going over anything we don't understand. We love her. She'll be our nurse for a few days, but then she's on an inpatient rotation. It was really good to see her today.

One of the hurtles that we had to "jump" was that they wanted Frank to be scheduled for surgery to install a triple lumen line instead of using his port. He put his foot down on this issue and just said no. Frank gave them the, "You've used his port for the other 3 transplants and it has never been an issue before. Besides this port has never given me any trouble, etc. " speach and they gave in.

So, fast forward to today and they take him back to get his vitals. Insert needle, push saline, drawn back on the port and what do you know... his port won't budge! (funny huh Ginger?) Frank laughed as he breathed deep, rasied his hands and turned his cheek, even sat upside down for them. Finally they got it unclogged, so to speak. And I think he'll be fine.
Frank took some fluids, Melphlan, Velcade, and then got his chemo bags on; now he's good to go.

Sara took this picture for us in the waiting room. Look behind us at the picture board. There are pictures of Frank's 2nd and 3rd transplant still pinned up there.

Love to you from Arkansas.... we are peaceful, thankful and grateful.

Peg