Hallelujah!

The neighbourhood has it's first trick or treaters! Wearmouths are ALWAYS early...ha!

My beautiful little chicken boy!

Jorja and her posse putting out the jack-o-lanterns before heading out!

Well I finally have a small piece of good news to report on my health! After my bone marrow biopsy last week, I got a bright light at the end of a longggg tunnel! Dr. Wong looked at my June 4th bone marrow from when I got diagnosed and compared to today. A normal woman's bone marrow at my age produces at about 60%. Before treatment my bone marrow was producing under 5%! Can you believe it! Anyway, today, I am happy to announce that 10% of my bone marrow is producing normally and the other 90% is between 5&10%. I know, it sounds horrible to some of you I'm sure but this is REALLY great for me! The Wonger-Donger and I were so happy and he said, "that will teach me to be a little more patient! this is really promising Vicki!". So freaking happy....I still have a long way to go but hopefully things keep improving. As long as they do, he's just going to let me be...I only got one bag of blood last week and my HGB is still at 96, my neuts are at an all time high, 1.0! My WBC are 1.9; all this and I'm fighting a cold. He is also sending me to a gynecologist to hopefully shed some light on my internal probs.

Anyway, good day today. Monday was not super good for me. I made a wonderful friend, named Lorie McNaughton, while I was in the hospital this summer. She sought me out in my room after a nurse told her I had little kids too. She has twin now 4 yr.olds and an 8 yr. old. She was 37 when diagnosed with lymphoma last Sept. and was the most positive and lovely woman I had known since my own mom, I swear! She was on CBC Calgary for a long time and I actually remember seeing her as the host at the supper hour! Anyway, we became confidants and damn good friends. We had so much in common, we were each in Journalism, grew up in Saskie, had the best damn husbands you could ask for and were dealing with some serious blood diseases at the same time. In September she got the go ahead to head over to the Tom Baker cancer center for a stem cell transplant. She literally had a bone marrow done, was cleared of her cancer, then a week later after a couple days in the hospital, found out it was back with a vengeance. I guess she went home for a few weeks, back to the hospital for 2 days and died on October 1st. I'm not telling you all this to get phone calls and emails because I'm feeling sorry for myself. This is me expressing my regret at not pursuing how she was sooner...I found out a month after she passed. I was actually leaving messages on her cell. Yah, I felt terrible once I found out...ooops. Anyway, I want to dedicate this little piece of my time to her because she was a HUGE influence on my outlook in the hospital. She was the second friend I met who passed away in the hospital while I was there but Lorie was different. I promised her while I was in there and we were talking about how we were going to make a difference once we were better, that I would follow my dreams of making a difference and especially to get Aplastic Anemia on people's radar. Damn rights I plan on making this happen one day, for you Lorie, but for everyone else who will need my help one day! I'm so lucky to have another powerful woman up there as my guardian angel/cheerleader!

When I left Dr. Wong's office today, Dr. Wong told me to keep up the good work. I told him I planned on it. I need to be around a long time, I have a LOT of people to take care of and lives to change! :)