The only picture I have of our celebration...

It's blurry...it's from my phone...but you get the idea. We toasted, we celebrated, we drank champagne (thanks, Nancy).

Stem Cell Transplant: 1 year later

This is now my 3rd time writing this post...the past two have been mysteriously deleted. The first try was good, the second was better, and now I will just make this short and sweet.

February 3rd was my mom's stem cell Birthday! We are all happy that horrible (albeit important) procedure is in the past, as is the very trying year that was 2010. It's no secret that it wasn't her best year yet. She started it with a stem cell transplant, took until October to fully recover, and ended it with a broken wrist thanks to a Christmas day stroll in Mammoth. Thankfully, when you have a year like that there's really no where to go but up!

Ashley, Damian, and I decided to plan a surprise getaway to kickoff "year 2". We had the fancy venue (St. Regis Monarch Beach), we had the eager partygoers (us, of course), and we had a hip celebratory dinner planned (Watermarc in Laguna Beach). Unfortunately, life had other plans. We awoke to a text on Saturday morning (day of our departure) from my mom saying that she had been at the hospital with my dad since 3 a.m. To make a long story short, my dad had passed out en route to the bathroom, my mom spooked and called 911, and they spent the morning/afternoon/evening in Intensive Care. He is completely fine, but we couldn't help but see the irony in the fact that our weekend of celebrating good health and NOT being in the hospital had led us back to that very place. Though it didn't go as planned, we were still able to honor the unstoppable Deb with a dinner in downtown Encinitas.

Happy Birthday, Mom! You make us wonder sometimes if you are actually Wonder Woman. When anyone else would have hibernated for the better part of a year, you owned it with more sparkle and positivity than we knew was possible for one person to have. You are incredible, an inspiration, and we're so thankful for all you do. Now that this year is over I think it's time to put the blog to bed. Hopefully we'll never have another reason to update the world wide web on the state of your health!

Sorry it has been so long but no news is good news, right? My mom is doing well, though she still has to go to the hospital a few times a week for shots, tests, and lots of fun :). I don't really understand the science of it, so I'm probably not a great person to update you all, but her blood counts are still very low and while the doctors aren't concerned, they also can't figure out why it is happening.
I wish I had a recent picture of her because she looks adorable. Her hair is growing back and is a pretty salt and pepper. She is very energetic and is almost back to normal. She's back doing her favorite activity (going out to lunch), and still has a somewhat restricted diet but she works around it. All in all, she looks and feels great. Now, if we could just get those blood counts up!
Thanks all for your continued love and support. Sorry this is SUCH a delayed update!

Latest Update

Not alot new on this end. Mom still has her place on the couch and has to stay in for at least the rest of the month. She goes to UCSD twice a week to get her blood checked and they say her body is recovering, although it is not fast enough for her. Still no getting to go out to lunch (her favorite). She realizes that this is a slow process and is willing to play by the rules--knowing a favorable outcome is just around the corner!

Check-up

We just got back from the nurse practitioner and she was really happy with how my mom is doing, so that was great to hear. Though her white blood cell count is still low, she said that it is the last thing to go up. She knows that her body is healing, though, because her platelet count was 50 last week and 178 this week! Yeah!
She still has a horrible taste in her mouth that is making eating and drinking really unappealing and the nurse reassured her that it would only be like that for 2 months (I think my mom was hoping it would be sooner than that!)
She has an appointment with her doctor next week because it will already be 1 month post transplant!

Mom is home now! My dad had a nose surgery last week, so the two of them are healing together at home feeling like a couple of old people. She's still not feeling great or eating much, but she's out of the hospital and that was the most important thing for her! She's hoping she's back at it by March 7.

P.S. I started a facebook account for her, which she doesn't really know how to use. If you write on her wall or friend request her, don't be surprised if you don't hear back.

A NEW DAY

Well, I guess Day 10 is the winning day. Mom said when she woke up at 3am she knew she felt better. No, not perfect, no not wonderful, just better. Her blood counts are starting to go up, so hopefully there will be nothing but improvement from here on out. Dad and I were here bright and early and at least she can talk now. Ashley is on her way so we will probably wait and see what the Drs. say about her going home.

The funny thing is that throughout this whole process they had her so concerned about the cleanliness of our home, bacteria, bacteria...after being here she feels that on our darkest dirtiest day home(I'm probably there), it is still 10 times cleaner than the hospital. Heck, just walk around wearing blue gloves and a mask.

For right now, still no visitors, but I will keep you posted.