Two days to go!!! Well, actually, since it’s Sunday night, I guess we technically have a day and a half until Day 0, transplant day. After that, they will start counting Day +1, 2, etc…so each day puts me closer ’til day 100 when, hopefully, I’ll be able to come home!

My mom, Laura and I are sitting here watching some episodes of “The Golden Girls”, one of our favorite shows. Laura has a headache, but she’s hanging in there, my mom is doing well and is chatting with Aunt Bitsy, and I’m feeling well…just a little tired. My counts are pretty much 0 at this point, although I got platelets yesterday so they went all the way up to 40,000! Not normal, but I’m happy with that. I will be getting blood tomorrow because my hemoglobin and hematocrit went down…I want to make sure I’m all pumped up for the transplant!!! I’m getting really excited about Tuesday because that will become like my new birthday (although, as I’ve said before, I’m not giving up Dec. 16th…I’ll just have two birthdays…nothing wrong with that!). October 7th will mark the beginning of my new life, cancer-free, and I am feeling just so positive about everything. I know my feelings change day to day, mostly depending on how I’m feeling physically, but I just feel so lucky.

Lucky to have Laura and her “gift of life”, lucky to have a wonderful family, lucky to have a huge support network, lucky to have the doctors I have, both in Fairfax and out here in Seattle. I still miss everyone I know back in Fairfax–all my nurses and Dr. Kales, but I know I’m getting good treatment here as well. The facility continues to impress us every day, and that’s pretty amazing.

As Kathy pointed out, it seems strange to feel lucky in my situation, but I have so many things to look forward to (visits from friends and family, returning home, finding a career and a date :), starting a family, and traveling all over the world), and I’m just trying to concentrate on the fact that going through all of this now will allow me to live a long, happy life. Plus, it’s not like I have a choice to go through this or not, right?

Katie had to leave today, and it was hard to see her go, but she’ll be back in about a month, and I’m really looking forward to it. We didn’t get to do lots of fun activities, but we got to spend time together, and that’s obviously what matters.

I guess I don’t have too much to share with you right now. I’m just sitting here, looking out at the beautiful night skyline of Seattle, relaxing on the couch. Things certainly could be a lot worse, and I will always feel lucky and proud to endure what I have within the past 3 and a half years…knock on wood, of course! I don’t want to jinx myself! It’s kind of weird to be proud for just dealing with a life experience, but I do. I will try to keep focusing on the positives through the next 102 days (yup, the countdown begins!), and I will forever carry with me the experiences I’ve had out here.

Enjoy the pictures below. I started my Cyclosporine yesterday (the scary gray drug), so we documented it for you.

P.S. Below, Laura published an entry to include a slide show she put together of our hula hooping this afternoon….we’re pretty awesome hoopers!! I know some may be shocked by the language in the song, but just listen to the beat, and you’ll realize it fits the pics perfectly!!

This is Laura again, thought I’d share a little slideshow with you all from earlier this afternoon. This is Julie & I gettin’ our “hoop on”. Enjoy…and FYI the music is not appropriate for kids, so those of you watching this within earshot of a little one, you may want to hit “mute”…for the rest of you, enjoy a lil Cypress Hill! :)  Also, make sure you wait until the video’s downloaded completely before watching it…otherwise it’ll freeze up while you’re watching.  Enjoy!!

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