Day -4 (Christmas Day)

So Merry Christmas to everyone!

Sorry. This is the only "official" Yuko & George family Christmas portrait for this year. It'll have to do cause it's all you get beyond our sincere thanks & appreciation to everyone. But just in case it's not obvious, I am extremely happy that Yuko is here with me during this whole process. I hope that I'll be able to make it up to her in the future.

And most of all, Happy Birthday to my Mom !! (Yes, she's born on Christmas day. That's why her nickname is Christmas Carol.) I still can't imagine how many b-day & christmas presents she was jipped-out of over the years for the intersection of those two simultaneous events in her life. I'm hoping to come back healthy and have her as the special guest of our party in 2010.

Also. . . Dr. Raab stopped by today to wish me a Merry Christmas. I was so happy to have seen him today. What a great guy.

Just a quick video recap of the day's medical activity for me. . . .

Also, today my roommate, Tateishi-san, whom we now consider each other brothers becaue of having to endure essentially the same stem cell transplant procedure, was visited by his wife, beautiful two daughters, younger brother and father. He invited me along to meet them, which was very nice. The young girls are not allowed in the Ackermann ward to reduce the chance of spreading infections, so we all met up in the hallway outside the front door. We put on masks to reduce the chance of picking up any infectious agents, especially considering that Tateishi-san is currently neutropenic and has zero immune system. I'm not quite there yet (will happen next week for me) but since I am his roomate I want to be sure he is not exposed to anything potentially dangerous.







So I said I would mention a little more regarding the hospital food. Gotta find some time to be a critic to keep me busy. . . . . The hospital offers a meal preference selection menu that I completed and turned in. It basically allows a choice between a red meat selection and a non-red meat selection (which might be chicken fish or vegetable). I thought I had checked the non-red meat selection for every day.

The meals here follow the same daily pattern. Morning meal is very light, usually consisting of some bread, cheese and a light vegetable broth soup. They also provide cofee or tea. Neither of which I drink. I just opt for the orange soda or apple juice that Yuko brought for me. Perfectly fine for me since I usually never eat breakfast anyway. But I have to take my morning medicine doses with some food, so this turns out to be perfectly sufficient. It all tastes fine.




The lunch is always the largest meal. For my Christmas lunch today I had a very nice tasting vegetable lasanga in a cheese-pesto sauce. Quite tasty and I ate the whole thing along with a small salad, fruit cup and a few cookies thrown in for this special day.

As you can see the dinner is also a very small meal, which is typical. I'm not sure if I or the hospital messed up on the menu selection. It looks like they provided me with roast beef. That's dissapointing. I just ate the cheese, bread and butter. I have been saving some wafer cookies I can snack on later if I need to fill up a little more. Hopefully all my future meals will omit the red meat.

BREAKING NEW FLASH **** It's now 7:45pm here and Yuko said she and Judy can bring over some smoked salmon for me. Yum! I love smoked salmon. I just cleared with the nurse and I know I'm going to enjoy that. They'll start my first chemo bag in a a few minutes and then I can meet up with them and get a quick bite of that salmon I'm dreaming about right now.

Looking forward to the last day of chemo this coming Sunday! Then my new "birthday" with the stem cell infusion on Tuesday following a one-day break to clear the chemicals out of my body. Of couse then the biggest downside will come soon after. . . . the dreaded neutropenia. But when it happens, that is the confirmation of totally resetting my immune system to cure my MS. I can endure it! I'm sure. And I'm looking forward to a better future quality of life myself, and more importantly, my family!

See ya'll soon!

- George