On May 2, I had an abdominal ultrasound, which uncovered no structural damage, enlargement, etc to my liver, spleen and kidneys. Whew!! I also had X-rays of my head, chest, shoulders and hips. Results pending. The next day I had a bit of blood work done as well as the bone marrow aspirate test where Dr Bahlis administered a local anesthetic to the area beside my tailbone. A needle was then inserted through my left hip bone for a bone marrow sample and also for a little chunk of bone. I’m still a wee bit sore but the procedure was OK. The nurse kept asking me if I was alright but really, I was. Perhaps it was due to my internally chanting a Vedic mantra taught to me by my good friend Drew Lawrence. .Dr Bahlis told me I was a ‘tough guy’.  I had to wear a big honkin’ bandage on my butt for 24 hours. I was also given a copy of the Autologous Blood Stem Cell Transplant Program manual to study in preparation for my first interview with the transplant team which will take place on May 9. Lisa, Samantha and Laurel will be accompanying me. I’m in the process of OCRing parts of the manual as they don’t seem to have a digital file available. With the ‘authority’s’ permission, I’ll post my own digital copy to my website.

I’m getting excited about getting this treatment under way. It won’t be a walk in the park and in many ways will be a real hassle, relatively speaking, but the alternative is out of the question. Then again, miracles DO happen.