Today was the day! Kim is officially a Baldy again :) Her hair made a rapid nose dive over the past couple days and today she had mom take the shears to her head. Sad to say, those two have not been the most technologically helpful people this week, so I don't have any new pictures for you, but that's what this weekend will be for!

Aside from that, Kim has still been very sick today, and has been kept drugged up for most of the day. Because it's so important for her to keep her weight up, they're doing everything they can to keep nutrition in her body. They've started her on IV nutrients, too- TPN and Lipids. They help.

We haven't heard anything new about her bone marrow transplant. Mostly likely, they will make the decision about her donor when they get the results for the bone marrow test she'll take once her blood counts have recovered. For now, they're all still dropping, so it will most likely be a couple more weeks.

For those of you who are a little new to all of this, I am planning to get a summary of her story up, as I know I tend to jump into the middle of things every time I post. Thank you all, anyway, for the love and support. She's a trooper, but can't do it without all of you!

You know what they say about excuses- they're like feet: they all stink!

But anyway, this past week Kim has really been struggling with nausea. It hit her hard just a day or two after she finished her last dose of chemo. They are especially anxious for her to maintain her weight because of how hard the marrow transplant is on a persons body. Hopefully, it won't last much longer. It's already hard for her to eat, as her tastebuds are chemo- fried.

Yesterday Kim started to shed a bit more than usual, and today is officially the beginning of the end for her hair. We were hoping to do something crazy to it before shaving it, so hopefully we'll have something fun to show soon.

Right now we are still waiting for Kim's counts to bottom out. Her ANC/ immunity is at zero, but her blasts (cancer cells) are still dropping. If she does well, then she might get to home home for the last few days of recovery, before going back to see how much cancer is still in her bone marrow. Most likely, there will still be some, and she will do a second, similar round of chemo and recovery. If, or when, her cancer count is at zero (remission) she will start her bone marrow transplant.

Kim is okay to have visitors, if they are healthy and over 14. She doesn't always feel up for it, so please check with us first, and try to keep visits shorter than longer. I sound so strict! But she really does love distractions when she's feeling well enough to be bored :)

Special thanks to friends whose Christmas presents got to Kim this weekend! Books, a sweatshirt, DVDs, and a PillowPet were all great ideas! Also, a picture of the great posters so many of you signed will be coming up soon.

Special thanks also to Uncle Mic and Aunt Leslie for the fun game!

And of course, thanks you all as always for the love, thoughts and prayers!

Catching up on the week

Once again, I have been neglecting my posting duties for the past few days. Things have been relatively quiet, and so I've been letting myself get lazy. For shame!

Kim is really doing quite well. She finished up her chemotherapy on Monday morning. She's been really tired, and made it until Tuesday without being too sick, but her eyes have been very painful (once of her chemo drugs, Ara-C, always does that to her) so she's been on a lot of pain meds and keeping in the dark most of this week. Yesterday she started throwing up, too, so now she's really being kept drowzy with the meds. But at least they can keep her from being too miserable- we're very happy about that!

This picture of Kim and Elliot was taken Sunday. He's one of our favorite therapy dogs, and his owner Joe has been really great to let him stay for long visits. They usually just come by on Thursdays, but they made a special trip to visit just a couple of their favorites on Sunday :)

Today we had our first meeting with the doctor who will be in charge of Kim's bone marrow transplant, Dr. Pulsipher. Although a lot of things will still just depend on what then find in the bone marrow donor system, (register at www.marrow.org!) and how Kim is doing each step of the way, we learned a lot today. I'll tell you more about this in the next post- I wanted to get you up to date thus far.

Special Thanks to Dennis, Jennifer, Jocelyn and the kids for taking Cheddar- Kim's snake. She's so glad to know that he'll have a great home since she can no longer take care of him.

We love you all- thanks for sticking with us through everything.