Preparing for the next phase.

My update for this session of the Tin Man remains the same. Things are steadily getting better and I continue to get stronger in my legs. It is nice to also be able to eat just about anything I want to (with the exception of meat cooked with some pink or red showing, runny eggs and uncertainty of prepared greens and fresh fruit). My last heart biopsy was good and my last blood draw showed all the numbers in favorable ranges.

I am getting ready to be passed off from the Cardiology Team at the UW Hospital to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) for the bone marrow work up. I have been told this phase will go fast compared to the heart transplant. I have described the process I will be going through in previous blogs. My transplant will be an auto-transplant, meaning my own cells will be used to re-colonize my bone marrow after it has been destroyed. The Doctor that has oversight of this told me that at the longest, I should be back at 100% by July 2010. That is longer than I would have hoped, but I will take 100% over what options were available to me 10 years ago.

My friend Dick called today and left me a message on my phone. He sees positive progress in his recovery from his heart transplant last month, though it is slow. Those of us that have a new heart are happy that we see positive steps in our health. It is hard to crawl out of these big dark holes we find ourselves in. Dick is doing a great job.