A Year Ending in a Hairy Situation

Wow, what a year! This past January, Pam was getting a brief respite from doctors and hospitals after 4 rounds of chemo, 3 (or was it 4?) trips to the ER and hospitalizations, God knows how many blood and platelet transfusions in 2012.  Then, in February, she was able to get the treatment regimen actually aimed at a cure: six total body radiation treatments, one more big blast of chemo, and, finally; her stem cell transplant, on Feb. 13th, 311 days ago. Unfortunately, her transplant was followed by six more weeks isolated in her room at OHSU with the flu.

But, fortunately, things could not have gone much better since.The rest of 2013 has been relatively uneventful by contrast.  Lots of doctor's appointments and lots of drugs, but only 2 ER visits and only one brief hospitalization since getting out of OHSU after the transplant. Improvement is slow and relatively steady. This is truly a marathon, not a sprint.

Next up: this February she will get another bone marrow biopsy and she will start getting all of her "baby shots": measles, mumps, rubella, etc.

Hairy Situation

Many of you know that her hair has grown in dark and curly.  She went to the hairdresser earlier this week to get it cut and styled. It looked terrible.  And, of course, she asked me how I liked it.  I stuttered and stammered; tried to avoid answering, and finally had to admit that I hated it.  It looked like an old lady hairdo suitable for a Prison Matron. She went back to have it re-done yesterday and it looks great.

Merry Christmas
The Snow is Fake

Doing Next to Nothing

As for me, I am taking a few days off, and am going to do my best to do very little. I am going to do some bike riding and catch up on reading. I just finished The Sisters Brothers on recommendation of Matt Harrison, just started How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams who is the creator of Dilbert.

I took this picture on the way back from Starbucks and, somehow, my camera phone added an animated gif of snow falling. I have no idea how that happened.  Probably some minor Christmas miracle.