Day +58

Well, time for an update! The results from the skin biopsy were inconclusive (just my luck), and while it did not confirm that the rash was GVHD, it also did not rule it out. However, my P.A. said that my eosinophils (the things  in your blood that generally go up with GVHD and come down when it is treated) did go down with the treatment of my skin rash--which also is inconclusive because eosinophils go up when you are having an allergic reaction, and also go down when it is taken care of. So, basically, nobody knows. My P.A. felt pretty confident it probably was a tiny bit of GVHD, which is just perfect. :-) I'll take it! Thanks for the continued prayers and happy thoughts flowing my direction, they seem to be doing their jobs.

More great news: my Tacrolimus levels have finally started to level out, and with no severe GVHD we are moving to just one appointment a week now! I am starting to have pretty severe hair loss from the Tacrolimus, another fun little side effect of this lovely drug. Patients typically don't go completely bald, but I do have noticeable balding spots all around my head. I try to tell myself it is just hair, but I would be lying if I said it was not weighing on me. You never realize how important hair is until it starts to look really bad--or until you lose it completely. I have been bald on three separate occasions now, I think I have paid my dues and I am ready for it to start growing back! The doctor said in six months to a year it should start filling back in, but with my thyroid issues there is no telling how well it is really going to grow back. Ah well, as long as I am actually here to agonize over it, I guess I will be thankful for the agony! :-)

The end is definitely in sight. Colten will have to be back in Pocatello by the 26th of August to return to school, and Rora and I will be hanging out in Utah until the 16th of September (Day +101). I am a little nervous to drive around the big city without my hubby, I must confess. Some of my medications have required me not to drive, so Colten has become the unofficial chauffeur and I am not sure I remember how it's done! It will also be lonely and just rough in general after having almost three solid months together, so be thinking of us when that time rolls around. I am so excited to be over halfway through this ordeal, but also pretty terrified to head back to normal life. I realize that we have to go home eventually, and nothing really bad has happened at all, but it is comforting to know that specialists who deal with what I am going through every day are just a few minutes away, whereas in Pocatello they will be much, much further. As much as I disliked having to move to Utah and have not been really satisfied with our hospital experience here, it is still a safety net, and I feel like I am getting ready to step out of my comfort zone. With GVHD potentially cropping up until around three years out of the transplant and a very distressed immune system, it feels like a very big step. I am just concentrating on getting to the end and FINALLY getting this central line pulled out of my chest. I cannot wait! As soon as it heals, I am going swimming, and then taking a shower until there is no more hot water left in our house. :-)

In non-transplant related life, I had another run-in with school issues this week. I contacted my accounting adviser (Ken) to get some advice on books I could be reading and activities I could be doing to stay updated on the material until the spring, and I received a very surprising reply telling me that he would have the administration do special processing for me to attend this fall if I could get my application for the graduate program in and my GRE taken within the next couple weeks. I have a weird relationship with this instructor because he is kind of a hard guy to like--cold, short, unapproachable, the list goes on. Most students fail his classes, or wait for a different professor to teach the class, but I found his teaching style to be an enjoyable challenge. Teaching styles aside, Ken is basically the most intelligent person you could speak with about all things accounting, and is the one who gave me a shot to get in to the program even though my undergraduate degree was in English. He gave me a year to do all the prerequisites, and then said I could join the year-long graduate program. His opinion of me rose with each semester, I think, as did mine of him. I pulled off this past year with a 4.0, but I have never worked so hard or so much in my entire life--and I am barely getting to the graduate program.

The problem now is that I always feel like I have to prove to Ken (my professor) that he made the right decision letting me into the program. When he extended the offer to get me into the graduate program late, it was awesome to know that a professor actually cared and would go out on a limb to help me. Unfortunately, after talking it over with Colten, we decided I would have so much stress over the next two weeks trying to get my GRE taken and going through the application process--let alone the graduate program itself--that it would just not be a good idea. I have a tendency to disregard most advice given to me by doctors, I find most of it to be unnecessary, if not absolutely ludicrous. This will be the first time I actually listen, take a semester off, remove myself from stress as much as possible, and just let my body heal and my new immune system grow. But the decision did not come easily, and now I feel worse knowing that I was just bemoaning being unable to go back to school, and then, once given the opportunity, I made the decision myself to put off going after those dreams of mine. It makes it much worse, somehow. Add to that letting my professor down, being a wuss and taking a semester off after he offered to do whatever was needed to get me in, and I am pretty discouraged with the whole experience. My only hope is that this one time I do everything by the book, the treatment actually works. There are no other options after this, if it doesn't work, I don't know what we'll do. I have to give it the best possible chance of knocking my cancer out of the park.

It is almost amusing to me how much anxiety this accounting program has caused me in just one year. The amusing (and sad) thing is, I don't even like accounting. I actually hate it. But for some reason, I am very good at it (with a lot of hard work). I am mediocre in English--my first love--and regardless of my talent level, there was just not much I could do with the degree (some of my aunts who are English majors, incredibly successful, and personal heroes of mine might disagree, but I digress). I started considering other majors for my graduate degree that would better allow me to support my family financially, and settled on accounting. I will most likely not be the primary bread winner of our household, and may not even have to work once Colten completes his degree, but I still wonder if I will be miserable even working for just a few years. The careers I actually considered for myself over the years were to be a writer, a veterinarian, a helicopter pilot, a marine biologist, and I briefly flirted with being an interior decorator or civil engineer. Accounting never even made the list. Isn't it funny how life pulls you down so many paths that you often end up living a life you could never have even imagined? And how we fight so hard for, and worry so much about, things that really don't even matter to us? Things we don't even like? You'd think with a terminal diagnosis it would be easier to focus on the important things and gain a better perspective, but I think it is just human nature to be ridiculous--at least every now and then. ;-)    

Rora Moment: While eating lunch together, Rorie struck up a conversation about God (this happens more and more recently, which thrills me).
"Mommy, God made us, right?"
"Yes, He did."
"And He made the doggies, right?"
"Yes, He did, He made everything."
"And we have lives, right?"
"Yes, we do. God gave us life."
"And God made us happy, right?"
"Yes, Rorie, God did make us happy."
"Cause He only gave us good lives, right? Cause God only gives us good things, not bad things, cause He wants us to be happy, right?"
At which point I just smiled and stared at my daughter and her infinite wisdom.  

Something to live by (thank you, Bonna, for the post):  "Fear has two meanings: Forget Everything And Run, or, Face Everything And Rise. The choice is yours."