GRATITUDES:
1. Biting into a coarse salt crystal while eating anything. That little burst of crunchy salty goodness is amazing.
2. Eye lashes. Hey, you notice their absence after a while!
3. Clean, fresh-smelling sheets.
4. A clothes line. Dryers are overrated.😄

Okay, so I don’t actually have a clothes line out back (and my neighbors are probably grateful for that) but I wish I did. Clothes and sheets dried by sun and breeze smell soooo much better than anything tossed around in a dryer. So the fabric is stiffer, especially with jeans. Big fat hairy deal. We don’t use dryer sheets or fabric softener, haven’t for years due to sensitive noses and the amount of carcinogens in that crap, so I definitely notice the difference when I put something out on a hanger to dry in the sun. Honestly, UV light is one of the best disinfectants around and we’ve got plenty of that in south central Texas!

I got a call from Dr. Bachiere’s nurse yesterday. The donor prep is beginning, meaning that my donor is going to be scheduled for all the vetting tests needed to clear him/her for gathering their stem cells. This is going to be a scheduling circus and I pity the people who are coordinating all the appointments on both sides. Time is a factor here. I’ll most likely be going back into the hospital for the start of another round of Blincyto because we just don’t know if the donor will be ready in time. My doctors don’t want me to go too long without system-scrubbing treatments because there’s always a chance that a stray mutant cell may have escaped the chemo to start breeding more little mutants. This is something we absolutely do NOT want. So, here’s the deal: I’m looking at being re-incarcerated sometime next week for two to three days while I’m hooked back up to the 24/7 IV drip. That treatment will last four weeks followed by another two weeks of break. That’s a total of six weeks in which to line up and vet my donor. If Donor #1 isn’t available or can’t make the appointments then we go to Donor #2. I don’t know if the donor first in line is the best match but I’m assuming they are. I’m also assuming, however, that all three are good matches or they wouldn’t have been chosen. That’s a lot of assumptions, I know, but at some point I just have to shelve my worries and trust that everything will work out for the best. These doctors know what they’re doing and like I’ve said before, the BMT unit at Methodist Hospital San Antonio is one of the best in the nation, so there’s that.