I've been wearing hats all winter, but full coverage hats are hard to find for the summer. I'm thinking about starting to wear my wig when I leave the house. It is starting to grow on me. At first I felt like a bank robber. But, the other day the woman behind the deli counter said she liked my haircut.

My bone marrow biopsy revealed that I have no leukemia. The problem is that my bone marrow is "too tired" to continue on the chemo regimen that was planned for me. My Dr. has decided to start me on the process of getting ready for a bone marrow transplant. This is what I was hoping to avoid since the beginning. It means having a caregiver 24 hours a day, getting an apartment up in Seattle, and lots of medical expenses. I have one last try at avoiding needing a bone marrow/stem cell transplant. The Dr. has switched a couple of my medications that may have immunosuppressive side effects. I will go in for my 6th round of chemo tomorrow. If I can get my counts back up in a timely matter I may be able avoid the transplant. I have been typed for the transplant. My brother, Nick, will be checked. He has a 1/4 chance of being a match. If not they will go to the National Database to look for an anonymous donor.

Since my last round of chemo I have been feeling really well. We even took a weekend trip to the Hood Canal. It was really nice to get away. The only problem had been my blood counts. They have not been coming up. Each round of chemo knocks the blood counts to nearly zero, but then as my bone marrow recovers it is supposed to bring my counts back up so that I can get the next round of chemo. I have had to have several blood and platelet transfusions to just keep me going. (Thanks again to all the donors out there : ) I had to go in for a bone marrow biopsy on Friday to see why my counts are not coming back up. The fear is that the cancer is back and messing with my bone marrow. The hope is that the bone marrow is just slow to recover because of the severity of the chemo. I'll find out the results sometime next week. I'll end this blog on a positive note and post some pics from our trip to the Hood Canal.