I'm Thankful...

Thanksgiving is just a few weeks away now, and never in my lifetime did I think I would be spending my 1st Thanksgiving with family and friends while battling leukemia. It still shocks me when I think about it, but I'm slowly coming to terms with it. I am thankful for the fact that I have an incredible Oncologist who has been such incredible support to me since April, he's full of wit and charm and each time I pay a visit to his office, I truly feel like he cares about how I'm progressing.

Today I stopped by the hospital and paid a visit to the vampires in the lab, who drew multiple vials of blood for the Polymerase Chain Reaction (also known as the PCR test). This test is a technique used to expand trace amounts of DNA or RNA so that the specific type of the DNA or RNA can be studied or determined. PCR can detect the presence of one blood cancer cell among 500,000 to one million blood cancer cells.Ultimately this test will determine if I am in full molecular remission, which is something I've been praying for on a daily basis since my first PCR test was done back in July and we learned that I was .5% away from full remission.

I get my results on November 16th and I can honestly say I've never been so nervous for a test result in my entire life. I have butterflies in my stomach, just thinking about it!

In other news, on Monday I became rather ill. Turns out I got strep throat, either from someone who works in my building or perhaps from Jason's assistant manager at work. Either way, I'm none too thrilled about it but thankfully my Oncologist put me on a strong dose of antibiotics right away to help fight it off and I'm starting to feel much better. Fever hasn't broken yet, but I at least have some of my voice back and don't sound like a 85 year old woman with emphysema anymore.

That's really all I have to report right now.

Oh, and I learned last night that Washington State voted yesterday to approve that liquor no longer be controlled by the government! So come June of 2012 we'll be able to walk into our local Costco, Safeway, etc. and purchase hard alcohol! This is exciting news for Washingtonians, as it's been controlled by the government (and taxed beyond belief) since 1933.