Tyler's 16th Birthday

Okay, so Tyler's Birthday was way back in the beginning of November but I'm just getting around to posting this. For Tyler's Birthday he got a new(used) car. He complained for months before he got the car because he didn't want a stick shift. He is a now very good at driving stick shift (minus the 2 times he hit the house and the time he put a huge gaping hole in the van bumper) and he's grateful that we made him learn. For his party he took his friends to trampoline world and to his favorite buffet. I'll post party pictures later.

Jacob's Birthday Party

This year for Jacob's 10th Birthday he invited his friends over for pizza, to play the xbox and

to go to a double feature of Yogi Bear and Narnia.

Bone Marrow Part 4 (pictures)

Day 5-Donating (smiling because it's over)

Day 1-Shots (smiling because I don't know any better)

Bone marrow donation - final report

I can't remember where I left off in the last post so I'll start with day 4. Day 4 was worse than day 3 but better at the same time because I was only one day away from donating. I didn't go to work and I'm glad. It was a lot more bearable at home. I think around 1pm we left to take Jordan to the airport. First stop, of course, the mall. I agreed because a good lunch was promised afterward. I let them do their thing and went and found a comfortable couch outside of the Apple store where I could get free wi-fi. From the car to the couch I walked like an old man, avoiding grimacing and consentrated on smiling so I didn't frighten the little children. I had contemplated staying in the car but the couch was much more comfortable than the car so I'm glad I went in. After lunch we hit the airport and said goodbye to Jordan. That's another blog in itself. Needless to say it was hard to say goodbye to my little girl for the better part of the coming year.

We arrived in Seattle and checked into the Sorrento hotel which was old but elegant. It had a huge king size bed which proved to be the best part of the room for Dianna because I didn't sleep much that night so hopefully she didn't feel me tossing and turning. My back hurt so bad I just couldn't go to sleep and so I was in and out of bed and the TV was on and off all night. We packed light for the overnight stay but I REALLY wish I would have remembered to bring some nyquil or tylenol PM or something. My bad.

We met Carrie, the donation coordinator and very nice lady, at 7am the next morning for my final shot. After getting the shot Dianna and I had some breakfast at the corner cafe' and then it was go time. I hopped up in the luxurious hospital bed with crunchy sheets and made myself as comfortable as possible. With a pillow under each arm and a bright pink blanket pulled up to my chest I was ready. They stuck a needle in each arm, the right to pull the blood out and the left to pump it back in. It was a weird feeling is all I can say. I could feel clear up in my right shoulder the pump pulling the blood out and in my left could feel the luke warm chill of the blood coming back in. I let Dianna choose the video to watch, hoping that I would be able to fall asleep because I was exhausted. No luck though, so I had the pleasure of watching Eclipse. It was a treat. The machine clicked and spun and in just over 3 hours I was all done. It was like giving blood for a really long time from both arms. Thankfully I didn't have to go to the bathroom while I was strapped in. I was concerned about this because they were pumping me full of IV fluids the whole time, not to mention the orange juice I downed for breakfast. Why the concern you ask? Well, with needles in both arms I would have required a nurse's assistance to go. I tried to convince Dianna to help me but she said there were certain lines that shouldn't be crossed in a relationship and that was one of them. The nurse assured me she was used to it but I assured her I was not. Enough about that. One other thing that was interesting is they were giving me a calcium drip to compensate for what I was losing. Apparantly I was getting too much at one point because my lips started tingling. It was like getting nitrous at the dentist office. A quick adjustment and it went away though.

When I was done I physically felt much better and my spirits were lifted as I watched them weigh and package the stem cell bag which, by the way, looks a lot like tomato soup. They put it in one of those organ coolers for transport and said by the next morning the patient would be receiving it. The nurses there were nice enough to give me a little thank you bag that had a card signed by all of them and a t-shirt and mug. I think there was a candy bar in there but I may have just been hungry and imagined that. Anyway, it was very nice. That afternoon and evening I was tired more than anything and spent it on the couch. With the help of some nyquil I slept very well that night (last night) and woke up pretty much back to normal. I went in to work with no problem and am looking forward to a relaxing night at home to finish recouperating. By tomorrow I expect to be good as new. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to do this and would encourage anyone who reads this to look into being a bone marrow donor if you aren't already. Aside from being the right thing to do, I'm hoping this will earn me a couple of bonus points with the big man upstairs. Heaven knows I could use the extra credit.

Bone marrow donation part 2

One word for yesterday, OUCH. Yesterday was day 3 of the shots and by far my worst day so far. Out of nowhere my hips started hurting like crazy. I was walking like an old man. I went in to work thinking it would distract me and it did for a while but still, like I said, ouch. Not like the make you cry ouch but a nagging persistent ouch. So, I've been a little frustrated with this whole pain scale thing. They told me if I ever got to a level 3 that I was supposed to call the doctor. Isn't a level 3 like a mild headache? It's still a happy face on the doctor's office smily face chart, right? It just didn't make sense because they tell you up front that it's going to hurt. Needless to say, I manned up and maintained that I was only at a level 2 even though I definitely wasn't smiling yesterday. Just give me a baby aspirin, maybe a flinstone vitamin and I'll be fine because that's how you treat a level 2. So this morning, day 4, I get the paperwork that my friend Brad has been filling out each morning after giving me the shots and I notice something. I notice that the pain scale isn't a scale from 1 to 10, it's a scale from 1 to 4. Well, that makes quite a difference. Here's how they define it; level 1 is mild pain that doesn't interfere with function. I'm thinking that's like a headache or something. Level 2 is moderate pain that does interfere with function but not ADL which is 'activities of daily living'. So a level two means you're in pain and don't really want to do anything but find a comfortable position but you're not in so much pain that it affects ADL like brushing your teeth or eating. Then there's the mighty level 3 which is severe pain severely interfering with ADL. If you make it to a level 3 you don't want to eat, sleep, play monopoly, nothing. You just lay there and sob. NO WONDER they want you to call if you're at a level 3. Level 4 is defined as disabling. I guess that's where you have the paramedics come in and lift you onto the gurny. Now that I've properly defined the pain scale I can safely say that I have not been above a level 2 this whole time. But like I said in the previous blog, I would gladly go through much worse knowing that this small sacrifice could save someone's life. I think about the patient a lot. I know it sounds a little twisted, but it makes all this much easier to handle knowing that she's going through a lot worse right now. My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family.

Bone Marrow donation

Umm, Hi, this is Chris. If you haven't guessed by now, Dianna is the mastermind behind our family blog. She asked me to start this entry out and talk about my experience over the last few days. Well, it started about 15 years ago when I was thinking about my uncle Bob who died of Leukemia. I wanted to be on the bone marrow donor list just in case one day I could help someone like uncle Bob. So we looked it up and had to drive all the way to Salt Lake City (from Provo) and then they made us pay like 25/30 bucks a piece and to top it all off they didn't even validate our parking. I hope they've gotten better. But hey, at the end of the day I was on the list. So, fast forward 15 years to about a month ago when I got a call out of the blue from someone down in the bay area in California. She asked some questions about my health and then told me that I was a perfect match for a woman in that area that needed a bone marrow transplant. I was so excited and nervous but eager to help.

Did you know that you don't have to get your hip drilled into to give bone marrow? That was a relief, not that I'm not tough enough to handle it but I might have cried and that would have been embarrassing. Anyway, what they do now is give you an injection once a day for a week that stimulates stem cell production and then at the end of the 5 days they hook you up to a machine for about 6 hours that sucks your blood out, spins it around, and then pumps it back in. I haven't made it that far so I can't say more about it right now. I am, however, on day two of the shots which are supposedly the worst part. They kind of freaked me out when they told me about getting nauseous, headaches, flu like bone aches, etc. I envisioned an experience similar to when Wolverine had all of his bones melted away and replaced with adamantium. Ouch. Thankfully it hasn't been bad at all (yet). You know how when someone scratches a blackboard and you get the chills? Well, imagine that but in your bones. It feels a little tingly I guess, especially in my skull. Weird. Beyond that I haven't felt that bad. My lower back is killing me but it hurts often and I'm not entirely sure if it's the medicine or just me. But, you know what? I would gladly experience 10 or 100 times the discomfort with the knowledge that I could be a part of saving someone's life. Somewhere down in the San Fransisco area there is a women who is battling Leukemia and right now is going through intensive radiation and chemotherapy to prepare her body to receive my bone marrow. How can I think to complain when the discomfort I feel now pales in comparison.

That's it so far. I'm betting that Dianna will have me do a couple more of these posts over the next few days. After all, our lives are pretty boring and having something like this going on makes for some good blogging.