Talked to Doc ShoozzenBootzen last evening

And he said....

But first a word about the one-sided-ness of this format. I've been handing out this URL address to everyone from the papers, TV, Luekaemia Foundation, to the 400 likers on TheBigKnock etc. and yet I don''t see any comments lately. Even from my fantastic niece Regan the Angel. I opened up comments to anybody a while ago so that I can hear back or at least get some idea that anyone is reading this.

The One dot Com campaign. One dot to Communicate.
Okay I came up with title but there is a company in South Africa with the same title so I'm going to have to have a think but here's the idea. You hit the reply button and type one dot, one full stop, one period (how can the smallest typographical symbol have so MANY names??)
I will know you have seen the post. That's it. Just the merest of gestures that means "yes Chris I see you"
--------okay did anyone else have  a little vurp there? sorry------

Back to programming previously planned.
He said that my reds are not as low at this point as they have been in a similar period in the past. I'm on 100 as of last Friday and I will get packed reds this coming Friday in Brisbane. He also said that the interferon is most probably now contributing to the suppressed cell production.

Great the cancer cuts the cells and the cure cuts the cells. Does anybody else think that's crap?

At any rate I know for a fact that many many people have started or restarted giving blood recently and many of those have said its because I have reminded them its a good thing. If this treatment continues like this I will be very selfishly asking even more people to give blood. At least my demand for blood product has dropped a bit this month. Please people don't get into car accidents,  I'm hogging the supplies. Its time for more red cupcakes to the local Red Cross clinic, I guess. "Dear blood donors thanks for all the good juice.... Sorry I'm such a greedy guts."

And he said that no, we won't look at the results in 6 weeks, no, not at 8 weeks but now we need to press on to 3 months! Specifically we have a BMA scheduled in another month from this Friday which is in fact 14 weeks. I'm not sure about the new Math but 3 months should be 12 weeks I think.

Don't even get me started on BMAs. I'm getting used to them now and I fall 'asleep' right off the bat but remember, under sedation I   just    don't    remember.    Bluey has to hear me whinging and complaining about the pain. " You know I can still feel that?" "You know that hurts?".  Amusing to some but it has to be wearing a bit on her.

At least he wrote out a script for blood cross check for me to do today so they have it on hand for Friday. That usually takes a couple of hours and if they wait to do it on the blood I give first up each month then we end up just sitting and waiting. Last time I got disconnected and we went out for lunch.

Mind you we had a nice visit with the excellent friends and owners of the Little Prince cafe in the Princess Theatre across from the Mater Hospital. I can totally recommend this place for coffee and caring. Tell them Chris sent you.

Blood typing and matching 101. Besides your blood type A,B,O AB etc. you have Positive and Negative. But on top of that you have something like 250 other antibodies etc that they may try to match. In my case my blood type was B Pos and my Brother/Donor is A neg and I'm somewhere in the middle... or not.... or screwed up. Anyway I need type O (universal) neg and its needs to be iradiated as well so they need to reflect on all the blood samples to try to narrow them down, then flash it and ship it to the Clinic. When you think of it.... its a miracle that there is any available for me when I need it. It just happens and we know that its a lot of work... So another thanks to the Red Cross, you are amazing.

Okay I'm off for my blood test
more later
Chris  ....remember One dot Com!