Since my last post, I have undergone the second infusion of melphalan chemo (on Thursday), and then the actual stem cell transplant (on Friday). The two chemo sessions have done their job of killing off the bone marrow and all of its contents. As a result, my white blood cell counts are dropping, and by Wednesday or so, they will be near zero, and will hover there until the transplanted stem cells begin to produce new white cells. This will mean that for a week to 10 days, starting Tuesday or Wednesday, I will be one sick puppy. I will be exhausted, my taste buds will be destroyed, so eating and drinking will become difficult, my hair will fall out, and there will be other, more disgusting side effects, not worthy of mentioning in a family blog! So, counting the day of the transplant as day 0, the real nasty times will begain day 4 or 5, and probably continue until day 15 or so. During that time, I expect to be too sick to blog or otherwise to tend to e-mail. Mainly, I'll be sleeping and trying to walk and eat and drink enough to stay out of the hospital. One interesting point about the stem cell transplant itself--since I am the "Stem Cell Stud," and collected in a single sitting, all of the 5,000,000 cells that were transplanted on Friday fit into a single large syringe. It was fascinating watching these cells flow through the IV and back home. It was also a bit of an anticlimax, for it took almost a month to do all of the preliminaries and testing and intitial therapies, but only ten minutes to do the actual transplant. So, gentle readers, I am feeling kind of like somone who is trapped on the railroad tracks and watching a freight train rumbling toward me, in incredibly slow motion, taking days to get here, but when it does....well, it will make an impression upon me, I am sure! I'll keep blogging until the train hits me--and will pick it up again after I recover sufficiently, probably toward the end of this month. My best to all readers--and my thanks for Florence, Amy , and Ann and Don Parfet for their superb care!