Tricia eating a few crackers before getting hooked up to the needles. She has no idea that the next 5 hours will be ridiculous.

First hookup attempt on the left arm. Looks good. (yeah, right!)

I think this is where it started to go wrong...

Fun, right?!

The blood coming out Tricia's right arm (gotta pump that ball to get it flowing!)

The nun hat ice pack. Helped a bit.

Cleaning out the tubes with saline.

There it is! First day 6.42 million stem cells.

Bruising from day one of apheresis on Tricia (ALMOST compares to some of Michelle's bruising from the weeks before. I think Michelle still wins!)

Michelle and Tricia, day 2 of apheresis (and done!) for Tricia, day of transplant for Michelle (sorry, they are a little dark!)

Lovely fruit display from Covenant Offices (where Tricia works)

Day after transplant, waiting to have our blood drawn. Tricia is feeling MUCH better, Michelle is tired and still swollen from being on Prednisone.

Tricia and Diane S., our wonderful Blue Team Nurse

Michelle and Eric H., our social worker

Day after transplant, Phong, Michelle, and Jim

Tricia here. Mom set up a new site under CaringBridge for updates on Michelle - apparently some people have had a hard time finding this site.

The new site is:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/michelledekok

Or you can go to www.caringbridge.org and type in "michelledekok" (no spaces) under the "Visit a CaringBridge website".

On the site you can subscribe to the journal, which sends notifications of any updates directly to your email.

The view of Mt. Rainier from the windows down at the end of the hall from Michelle's room:

One of Michelle's newest, darkest, biggest bruises (ouch!).

2008-August 1-a 2nd blood clot & chemo put on hold

I got the results from my ultrasound & I have another blood clot. This one is in my right arm where my central Picc line is. Because of this they had to put a new line into one of my veins to do the platelet transfusion I needed Wednesday. The chemo I was supposed to do today is now on hold because we can’t use my Picc line anymore & you can’t put chemo through a regular line right into your veins. It would get into the tissue & do damage. The only way I can do chemo is to have the double lumen Hickman catheter (the one I had put in for my last transplant) put in sooner than later. And because I have a history of blood clots & already had the one in my superior vena cava (my main vein) the doctors didn’t want to put the catheter in till right before the transplant.

There is a problem though with having the catheter surgery because I am on a blood thinner. I cannot have any blood thinning medication in me when they do the surgery because there is the possibility of bleeding to death. The Warfarin blood thinner that I was taking is in a pill form that takes 4-5 days to get in & out of the body. The doctors had me stop taking that. There is a Heparin blood thinner that can be run intravenously 24/7 that takes an hour to get in & out of the body. The doctors are going to call me today about being admitted into the University of Washington Medical Center this evening to start that. Monday they would take me off the Heparin blood thinner, check my blood to make sure there is no blood thinner left in me, quick have the surgery to put the catheter in & immediately put me back on the blood thinner.

But, there are more complications. Normally Heparin keeps people from getting blood clots. There are rare instances where Heparin actually causes blood clots. Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) is waiting on blood test results to see if I am one of those people. That would mean I cannot do the Heparin blood thinner & a new plan would need to be come up with.

I have been a difficult case for SCCA. Everything that can go wrong seems to be. They are constantly changing their plans. I am so thankful to have these doctors taking care of me. I try to be thankful for even the smallest things that take place in my life. I definitely do not take for granted anything anymore. Even with so much going wrong I make myself thank God for the smallest, littlest, tiniest things that go right or make my life easier. Believe me. This is difficult. But it’s the only way I’m going to get through this.