second post: Sunday, June 15

It's interesting to see how my weight has fluctuated.  It was 191 when I was admitted (fat, but fit).  Because of the renal failure and chemo, They gave me bags of  IV fluid and I gained 15 pounds to 206.  I then started peeing and losing muscle mass and dropped 33 pounds to 173.  I seem to have stabilized at 175.  It was a wild ride.  It reminded me of another Jerry Seinfeld joke, "What's the deal with Opra?  First, she's fat, then she's thin, then she's fat, then she's thin.  Come on!  Pick a body type and stick with it."

My pulse rate also took a roller coaster ride.  My resting rate is usually around 45-47.  After chemo it dropped to 30-35 for several days, which had everyone's attention, although not as much as when a tech mistakenly entered 219 into the computer.  It then hovered around 100 for several days, maxing out at 119.  They think it went up due to low blood volumn.  I'm now back to 62.

I made a call out to my friend Denny the other day about hoping he would be my bone marrow match.  Denny was a world class athlete, very fast.  However, if I had my dream doner it would be my brother, even though he has very slow twitch muscles.  Don is 7 years older and always took care of me.  I idolized him when I was the little kid brother.  It would be very special if he was the one who saved my life.  When I was six, I used to complain that when mom and dad were gone, he always got to be the boss.  So one fine day mom trusted me to be the boss. When she came home, Don was sitting on the roof, serving a timeout.  I was found guilty of abusing my authority and never got it back again.  The hospital will mail him his blood doner kit tomorrow.  We're still negotiating the fee; the last offer on the table was an absentee ballot for Hillary in 2016.

As yesterday's near endless blog pointed out, there is a reasonable path to a cure, not only of the leukemia, but also the lymphoma, which is clearly defined in all the literature as 'incurable'.  As I said, things have to go right but it's nice to have hope.  Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good."  After all, I met my darling wife because I was mugged in a McDonald's and spent a week in a coma.