John may have a donor!

I am so excited I could do cartwheels, even though I have never been able to do them before!  I'm singing for joy at the top of my lungs.  John may have a donor!  Oh praise God!

On Wednesday John called Hershey Medical Center (where he is going to have the bone marrow transplant) to ask if a donor was found for him yet.  Ruth, the RN who handles such matters, was not in.  So John left his name and number.

Yesterday, Ruth called back.  She told John that one more factor needed to be checked, but they think they have found him a perfect match.  A PERFECT match!  She told him to keep positive, because when everything has matched as it has thus far, the last piece almost always matches too.  She said by the time John comes to see Dr. Claxton on October 20th, they will be finished with what they need to do, and will be sure whether or not it is a match.

I am so excited.  Dr. Claxton told John at his initial appointment that he had an 80% chance of finding a donor.  While this is a high percentage, in the back of my mind, I kept thinking, what if he was in the 20% who can't find a donor?  Well, today's news is a good sign.  It looks like his marrow type is not a real rare one.

So I hope they found a donor for him on the first check...

On another note, many of you have been asking how John is doing.  Well, his cancer is progressing.  His biggest problem is that his white blood cell count is very low, and he is catching everything that comes down the pike.  Recently he has had a cough, a skin infection, and a virus.  And then he caught the flu which he promptly gave to me.  I have to get a flu shot this fall because I can't afford to be sick also.

He also has a very low red blood count.  This makes him VERY sleepy.  He sleeps about 16 hours a day, sometimes more.  He is asleep right now (he hasn't gotten up yet today) and it is 5:20 PM.  This causes me a lot of lonliness, but that is material for a whole nother journal entry.  This one is getting too long.  I don't want it to sound like he has totally fallen apart - we do have some time where we can do things together, and we are making the time together very quality time. 

Well, bye for now.  Hope everyone is doing well.  Love you all, Krissy :)