Fred Hutch and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance Visit

To All-

Wow Wow Wow!! Those three words encompass many things about our first visit to the Fred Hutch and SCCA. I'm really not sure where to start but safe to say the entire visit was very informative, well orchestrated, refreshing in a odd way but most importantly extremely encouraging! As with a great deal of this journey it's impossible for me to effectively communicate the entire process or what's happening within that process, there's just too much, but I will say today was a great day! Not that we hadn't had good news before however today we were able to put certain cares and concerns aside and truly look at the process and really the time line. We found out today that we can expect to begin the transplant process either late June or early July. Ret's mad because it's getting in the way of her summer and much worse her golf. While the actual transplant itself will be the easy part, if there's really anything easy in any of this, the "Conditioning " process is the most difficult in almost all cases. That is where, for all of us "lay" people, the Chemotherapy takes place. It is an intense 4 day medicine therapy, "chemo", that will eradicate most if not all of the cancer cells. That's not to say you are cancer free, just that Ret is in remission and they can then capture Ret's blood which carry the stem cells for them to reintroduce to her after she has gone through a 2 to 3 week recoup period. They actually capture and store enough stem cells to preform two transplants if necessary. After that has taken place we need to live within 15-20 minutes of the "Hutch" just in case any complications arise. It truly is a critical time as Ret will be extremely vulnerable to any type of illnesses from the common cold, flu, measles, chicken pox or whatever. But again we need to be close just in case anything comes up. That is because her immune system is basically gone. That period will last at least 3 months but could be as long as 6 months. As mentioned before in my previous posts all these things are dependent how Ret reacts to all these different procedures.

As I write this, I can see how to some of you this may not sound encouraging however given some of the options that are or were available believe me it really is.

Now I know that this is what you are really waiting for and that is my rants!!! Look I spared most of you this week because I placed this at the bottom just so those of you who want to can skip it. But really this is about each of you.

As you know I've mentioned things in previous posts that a lot of you have done for Ret and I along this crazy road we're traveling, again as you also know I'm not doing this for any other reason than to simply thank each and everyone of you. So here I go. I'm not sure but with the economic uncertainly in the world today that there aren't many places where you might place your money but one thing I will tell you is that whether it's Hallmark or any other card company dump it there. That's because some of you are spending a crazy amount on cards, whether it's monthly or weekly, and yes some of you are sending one weekly, Ret is getting a tremendous amount of cards. To each of you we can only say thank you.

I think I mentioned last week about things that Ret wants to take with her during the transplant process one being the prayer shawl she received, another being one of those new computer chip picture frames that rotates pic's off the chip which I'll pick up here soon, but another is a very special letter. Sorry I'm getting long winded here. We have a very close high school friend of ours who Ret has forged a very special relationship with over the years who sent her a letter. While the relationship is special, what is really special is not so much the letter it self but it's delivery. What makes it special is you need to know Bob is a feature writer for Associated Press and has been for thirty years, actually working at the Pentagon and he bangs out stories at a fevered pace as you can imagine. Just google Robert Burns AP and you'll see. So with that pace and volume of text he creates on a daily basis it would be too easy to just bang out a little more in an email or typed correspondence, knowing full well it certainly would be heartfelt, but still an easy way to communicate. But no, he left the keyboard and using his words he "was drawn to the pen" yes the old hand written letter. To some that may not seem to be that special but given how fast we live our lives the thought and the time Bob spent to be more personable was fantastic. As you can imagine the words and the message were caring and special but it just struck me that the medium just as special. That too is a treasured memento that will accompany Ret on her visit and stay at the Hutch.

Again you all hold a special place with us.

Lauretta and Jack