Update & Hello - Dave (Habubrat)

Hello friends! Been a while since I blogged here, but have chatted a few times and participated in some topics here and there. We have had a great 2 mos+ at home in N California. Dave has recovered well, been working full time, doing some physical therapy to get his flexibility back, etc. We have been planting trees in our yard and just finished up a whirlwind 700+ mile trip in N California through the wine country, up the coast to Eureka, over toward Redding and back down to Sacramento. Dave loved it and was amazed at the many different terrains and temperature changes. Of course we saw some of the beautiful redwoods. We took our dog (lab) Kip with us and he enjoyed it as well. Several highlights, but one that was cool was a river flowing into the Pacific Ocean where some seals were venturing in and out of the river and then darting back to the ocean and hanging out in the waves. Alas, tomorrow we head back to Little Rock, Arkansas for transplant #2. We've not heard any issues of concern with swine flu, so hopefully everything will go as planned. We have a new doctor because our doc left the clinic. Not looking forward really to breaking in a new guy, but I had heard good things about this doc even before I knew he would be ours, so I'm hopeful it will go fairly smooth. All the docs in the clinic participate with each case, so its pretty standard care - imagine that! Ok, so if all goes well, and we expect it too, we will be there for about 21 days. A day or two of some tests and then up to the transplant unit to start the 4 day chemo cycle with the 5th day of the transplant. Then we wait and monitor as his immune system bottoms out and then begins to climb again. Once he is above 2.0 on WBC and RBC and platelets are stable we will be able to fly home and be monitored by an oncologist here. We aren't sure what happens after that yet. They tend not to give you the whole story but dribs and drabs as you get closer to needing to know. Its better for us that way. I think that you would just run screaming off a cliff if you tried to assimilate all that would occur start to finish. Also I think it allows room for changes and flexibility as Myeloma treatment is pretty fluid at the moment with all the research. Most of you know I tend to do daily updates on Dave's caringbridge website, a link which you can find on my profile page. Hope all is well with all of you. Best, Lori