1/21/05 It's a Beautiful Day

We took Emily and Alex to school and headed to Dana Farber. We got there about 11 AM and I want to phlebotamy to get my blood counts taken. When I met with my Doc 45 minutes later and he pulled up my counts, they were beautiful. This is true confirmation to me that I am on the mend. The biggest concern at this point will be Host vs. Graft Disease (HVGD) which is essentially a form of rejection. This will probably not be a concern till about the 2 1/2 to 3 month post transplant time frame when they start weaning me off the rejection drugs I am currently taking although it still can happen anytime. I then went next door to Brigham & Woman's to have my Hickman Port removed. When I got there and was lying on the bed the nurse came over and asked me if I was getting a pace maker and I told her no I was getting my port out and showed her my port; she then asked me about how my bypass went and I told her I have no heart problems I just want my port out. For some reason my into was on the same page as somebody else's and the Nurse put me on my own page. The Doc came over tugged on the port and out it came. He put a little pressure on the entry point and it stopped bleeding and that was that. All of about 15 minutes. Now I will no longer have to cover my port with a big sticky plastic sheet in order to take a shower. Now that is living. We were back by 5 PM to pick the kids up from after school. I do not need to go back till next Thursday.

Anyhow I was wondering why Rumsfeld a few hours before the big inaugural party said in an interview that Iran was next. Then our President gives his great acceptance speech about freedom and our soldiers but forgets to mention that this country is at war and losing badly. He never mentions Iraq once in his speech?

The moral of today's story is to know or bring somebody with you who knows exactly what procedure you are having done. Nobody wants or needs mistakes.