Chronicle of a Stem Cell Transplant (and on through to the other side)

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The Week Ahead

Well, it is scan time tomorrow, the first since beginning the SGN-35 trial.

I am very curious as to what we will see, but am also not wanting anything less than a significant reduction in disease to "quash my vibe, man."

I have been feeling so good that the results are almost irrelevant, except that they aren't. Tomorrow's test is, however, only a CT, not a PET scan, so it won't measure actual disease activity, just size. I'm going for gold, so we'll see.

I'm also interested to know what my hemoglobin is. Having had disease-related anemia for years now, my hemoglobin has been hovering in the low to mid 80's the past few months and rarely peaks over 90. A few weeks ago, after beginning the trial, it was 94. The normal range is 120-150 and I simply can't imagine what I'd be like if it got that high. Really annoying, probably!

It will take a few days for the scan results to become available, so I will likely have to wait it out over the weekend. No matter, as on Friday we have another wonderful day of writing planned for Callanish, this time in my friend Jan's garden on Bowen Island.

Speaking of which, the Callanish Society website has just been beautifully redesigned by my friend Allison. Click here to check it out (and, yes, that is me, the giant wood nymph writing in the forest on the home page slide show). We plan to get a writing page up soon.

Beyond Friday, we will be heading down to Point Roberts again on the weekend as Ian officially begins his summer holidays (and I continue mine).

Aah, sweet freedom!