A Father's Advice

This cartoon is appropriate for tonight's blog entry because the "son" (Adam) is coming to Michigan tomorrow to spend time with his "Dad" and share some good times and sage advice.

Some things change. Some things never change. Our relationship with our kids never changes. We've always been a close and tight-knit family. We continue to be now.

Adam will be here with us for the next four days.

Gil got word yesterday from Karmanos that the transplant schedule has been set.

Genie will come to Michigan this Sunday. The following week will have her getting the necessary tests to assure she is a healthy donor. She will get Neupogen -- just as Gil did -- to stimulate her own bone marrow to produce lots and lots of healthy stem cells. She will stay during the week that Gil starts his chemo so she can provide the cells when Gil is ready to receive them.

(Donors no longer need to have a bone marrow aspiration to harvest the stem cells. It's not done that way anymore. Stem cells are collected via apheresis and it's as simple as donating blood at a Red Cross center.)

Gil is getting his own testing done this week -- echocardiogram, pulmonary function studies, bone marrow biopsy -- so he can be admitted to Karmanos the week of September 28th.

From that time forward, things will go quickly. Five days of chemo followed shortly thereafter by the stem cell transplant. Beyond that, we don't know what to expect. (We know what we're hoping for!)

We'll stay in touch.

Haiku:

Two more visitors

Expected in the next weeks.

Family comes through!