The schedule rules

The beach here was part of a gift of land in honor of Julia Feiffer, and nobody can go on this beach, ever, as part of this grant, so that it remains pristine.

The calendar is starting to solidify and I am packing it with as much fun as I think they will let me have. My scheduling nurse met with us last Thursday, then scheduled herself on vacation starting last Friday, so I had to track down her substitute. She was very helpful and worked out a schedule, and sent it to me at 3:30 am yesterday. Those nurse shifts are crazy. It looks like this right now:

Today - meet with my local doc; PICC line out?

8/26-9/1 Strawberry Music Festival with Beauch, near Yosemite

9/2 Fly to Bozeman, go to Yellowstone with Donald

9/6 Fly to SLO

9/8 To Stanford for testing, move into apartment

9/9 Lisa and Manuel fly in; further testing for me

9/10 Testing for Lisa, then we all go back to SLO

9/11-9/17 SLO day trips w/Lisa and Manuel

9/18 I go to Stanford for tests and classes

9/19 Central catheter (port) put in

9/22 Start getting slammed - chemo and total body irradiation

9/23-26 Outpatient TBI, walk around glowing

9/25-29 Lisa goes in for Neupogen shots

9/27 Get in hospital E unit before I fall down

9/29 Cell collection (Apheresis) from Lisa

9/30 Maybe more cell collection; Transplant day (Day Zero)

9/1-9/?? Dance with the devil. Love my new bone marrow. Acceptance. Build enough new WBCs and Reds and platelets to get out of hospital.

10/3 Lisa and Manuel get to go home, having suffered through an odd vacation of sorts.

10/? Hoping for 10/15, move back into apartment in Palo Alto and start outpatient treatments

12/31? Go home partly cured

1/1/09- 7/1/09? Weak but improving, then fully cured

Mike jamming with Dennis and ? up in Big Sur

Judy and I are honored teammates of the Team-in-Training team, but as warriors we try to do the training with the team, keep them inspired. I use her hair salon. Here we are at the end of the 8 miles on 8/9, in Morro Bay.

Dana and I did 8 of the 9 mile training on Saturday 8/16. We got there late and cut the first mile. It wasn't bad, better shoes helped me. Now that I know I cannot be at the Nike Marathon in mid-October, I have slowed my training. I need to add some weight work and speed work to avoid Tyson's most damaging blows, especially the orange sack.

Dana is working hard at getting her classroom set up; school starts Monday for teachers, Tuesday for kids. Mike and I spent 2 hours clothes shopping yesterday, my upper limit and his too. Dana nixed almost everything we bought. Sheesh. I am mostly working on getting schedules together and getting other things nailed down. I replaced the hot water heater finally, rolled the dice for ten years and carpeted the garage to boot. It seems while I was away the boys have divvied out my key ring to various places which remain unknown; parts of my car are missing also, so I am trying to relocate things and prep for another absence.

Auntie Stacy and uncle Barry have offered to take Mike in for the school year, which is great since they live near the high school and will offer some stability and guidance that Mike isn't getting from John. Woody may stay at Auntie Lia's right down the street, so Mike could bring Woody to Stacy's for sleeping, a dog security blanket so to speak.

I continue to feel fine. It would be great to get this PICC line out today, and I think they can do it since I will be getting a port or central catheter on 9/19. The docs better have some chemo schedule for me at today's appointment. I hope all the crazy planning I have done, to try to enjoy the world before I go into Abu Stanford Ghraib, doesn't blow up in my face today. The big trick is getting 6 lumbar punctures with intrathecal methotrexate between now and 9/22. That means a spinal tap, love those, and injection into the spine, to get the little bastard spine hiding leukemia cells. I have to figure out the schedule for these.

I cannot get off this 4:30 am wake-up time. I stayed up until 11:30 watching the Olympics last night, but woke up at 4:30 anyway. I need a nap already. If you happen to have an apartment in Palo Alto that is empty for the next 4 months, let me know. I might have to go up this weekend and nail this down.