Category: Uncategorized
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The Illusion of Normalcy
I recently published a post called The Joy of Normalcy, where I extolled the pleasure and comfort of being able to live a pretty normal life, despite George’s diagnosis. He basically had no debilitating side effects from his chemo treatments, like nausea or loss of appetite. He did get an infection, but that was treated […]
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Reception into the Orthodox Church
This past weekend was one of joy for us. George was received into the Orthodox Church, something I had been praying for and hoping for years! I think the leukemia diagnosis nudged him in that direction – having a spiritual foundation and home base is a comfort when facing such a challenge as cancer and […]
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The joy of normalcy
In a previous post, I wrote that George had finished up his round of chemo injections and we were happy that we didn’t have to drive the 50 minutes to Camden every day anymore. Then I remembered that he would have to have blood drawn regularly so, maybe we were kidding ourselves. Well, the good […]
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A New Week Begins
Today is Monday and last Friday, George finished up his injections of Vidaza. He is still taking the Venclexta pills for another week, though. We are both glad we won’t have to drive to Camden every day anymore….but are we fooling ourselves? Today, George has a follow up appointment with Dr. Ghimire and then as […]
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Bone Marrow Biopsy #3
Yesterday, March 28 we drove out to UPenn in Philadelphia for George’s scheduled bone marrow biopsy. He has had two previous biopsies at Cooper hospital, but said this experience was different. At Cooper, he was hospitalized when he had them so of course it was different in that respect. This time his biopsy was done […]
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A Birthday
In the midst of all the doctor appointments, lab work, tele-health consultations, colonoscopy prep, and office work, we stopped to celebrate George’s 58th birthday. I can’t adequately express in words how thankful I am that this man was born and that our paths crossed so that I may have had the extreme privilege and joy […]
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What a Busy Week!
Now that we have decided that George will have his bone marrow transplant at UPenn, there is much to do to get him ready, as well as keeping him on the path to healing and staying in remission. On Monday, the home health nurse from Bayada came by and looked at George’s wound on his […]
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BMT Consult #2- The Hospital at University of Pennsylvania
George’s second bone marrow transplant consultation appointment was with Dr. Loren at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. We didn’t really learn any new information. There are some differences in the way UPenn and Jefferson approach the transplant process. One notable difference is that Jefferson will use half matches, while UPenn strives for full […]
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BMT Consult #1 – Jefferson University Hospital
On March 11, we drove out to meet with Dr. Wagner at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia for a bone marrow transplant (BMT) consultation. The first thing that happened was George had his blood drawn, of course. This was done to get George’s blood type and to check for anti-HLA antibodies. If the antibody count […]
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A New Dilemma
In my last post, I wrote about our dilemma of having to make the decision to meet with a bone marrow transplant team at a new hospital we had never heard of, or waiting almost two months to meet with the team at UPenn, our first choice of hospitals. We ended up choosing the new […]