Great News!

Carla's blood test results today were excellent.  Her white blood cell count jumped up to 4.41!  She got a 1/2 L of saline and then headed off to see Dr. Balogie.  Our appointment was for 11:30 but it was 2:00 before we got to see him.  We didn't get out of MIRT until after 5:00.  It was a very long day.

Here are the graphs...

Dr. Barlogie was pleased with her results.  He said her multiple myeloma was in remission.  He wanted us to return in about four weeks for the second stem cell transplant. 

Most of our talk today centered around making plans to get the hardware in Carla's back repaired.  He doesn't want any invasive surgery until after the second transplant and the completition of the two consolidation chemo phases.  This would mean the fall at the earliest.

We want to meet with some neurologists and see how they proposed to repair her back.  We meet with one at 9:00 tomorrow morning and Dr. Barlogie is atempting to get us an appointment with another one on Monday.

Carla is scheduled to get her CVL Triple Lumen catheter removed tomorrow morning at 8:30.

Now we have to decide if we will continue to rent our apartment for these four weeks or move everything back to Springfield and then hope we can find another one when we return.  Right now, I lean towards continue renting it as the rent is reasonable and there are more patients coming to the Myeloma Institue all the time. 

We had quite a storm last night.  Southwest of Little Rock (Benton) and northeast of Little Rock a tornado was on the ground.  The wall cloud passed less than a mile west of our apartment.  A TV Station near our apartment has a picture of the wall cloud on their web site.  http://arkansasmatters.com/mymedia/view.php?id=72822

Carla's daughter, Carissa, drove down from Springfield.  She drove our Honda and the oil light came on near Harrison.  She couldn't find any mechanic open as it was after 6:00 p.m.  She had to spend the night in Harrison and get the car checked out this morning.  It looks like it was the sensor that was a problem and not the oil pressure.  She was able to get it checked and still made it in time to meet Dr. Barlogie.

Carla's birthday is tomorrow.