Mick McKellar Update--Day +99
The intrepid walkers were once again caught in the rain this morning, on our way back from blood testing at Charleton Lab A. This time, however, we were prepared and carried umbrellas, which kept us mostly dry. Shortly after arriving, semi-damp and shaking umbrellas, at the transplant house, the day transformed. The gray blew away, replaced by bright blue skies, warm sunshine, and cotton candy clouds.
During my visit at the hospital, I validated my access to my online account at Mayo Clinic and can now check my test results directly from their systems. The danger, of course, is that reading the numbers is not the same as interpreting the numbers. Still, it is good to have access to those records.
My hemoglobin has not changed, still at 10.3, low but stable. My other numbers have gone up and down, but none seem sufficiently changed to warrant intervention. They test again, day after tomorrow, and then we see the doctors...on day +101.
100 Days
Tomorrow will be day +100, and although that usually marks the end of the acute period for GVHD, it is not a marker engraved in stone, more like a pie crust promise: quickly made, easily broken. Actually, it is a general guideline only. We still hope to come home in a week or so, but there are loose ends to be tied before we get to leave town.
We try to pin down the doctors, but they cannot provide a date yet. Much depends on my numbers and on a successful management of this crazy rash. There is also my Hickman catheter, which must be removed before I go -- a ticklish task to remove a device which has been part of me since February 19th, and connects through my jugular vein to my heart.
The time passes in fits and starts, exciting because we are close to going home and frustrating because so many conditions and questions must be met and answered.
Scaredy Mick?
It is also a bit frightening to sever ties with such a massive and responsive care system, only moments away. We will have to come back here in a month, for a check up and testing, but in the meantime, we will be relying on home-town health care, without the resources of Mayo Clinic. Only my trust in God and His daily gifts make it easier to accept. One thing has not changed, I could still lie down for a nap, and never wake up. It is the nature of the beast.
In my day dreams, I tried to imagine what it would be like if I could create worlds, and what I would do if I created a garden world like the Earth and the caretakers I provided exploited and poisoned my garden. Would I have a built in "self-cleaning" mechanism? Would I use it? The poem, Self-cleaning, attempts to describe my imaginings. And begs the question: Are the weather and climate anomalies we are experiencing, part of the Earth's self-cleaning cycle? Hmm...
Thanks for you wonderful communications, your prayers, and your good thoughts. We cannot wait to get home again.
God bless and good evening,
Mick
And now, Self-cleaning
Imagine you had the power to create worlds. You could design planets that were gardens, frozen spheres, furnaces, or even desolate rocks. The gardens would need tending, so you could hire or even create caretakers for your garden world. But should they fail to care for it, or worse exploit and poison the garden, would you not build in some sort of self-cleaning mechanism, a sort of re-start button?
I wondered, what if the self-cleaning mechanism for our world has been activated? Could all the storms and climate changes be our own world attempting to "reset" or "reboot?" Not being the Creator of our world, I could not comprehend His mind, but in my own limited fashion I present one possibility...
Mick
Self-cleaning
I stood upon a bridge that spanned the sky,
And surveyed all the world that turned below.
I cast my gaze from pole to pole, and I
Despaired that what I'd planted did not grow.
My garden wasn't simply choked with weeds,
Weeds had joined the trees and seas in dying.
My caretakers had filled only their needs,
The toxic mess they left had me crying.
The gift I gave them, a priceless treasure,
Needed only careful, loving tending.
Greedily they'd wasted the full measure,
Of resources now reaching their ending.
Reluctantly, I flipped a switch, meaning
I'd started the cycle of self-cleaning...
Mick McKellar
May 2011