Dan and I went to Stanford on Friday and came out of it with a TON of information and things that we now have to consider and start planning for.

The thumbnail sketch of my next year is basically:

Finish chemo. I actually start my next round in the hospital tomorrow and it should last 4 days, 5 at the most so will be home on Friday. Then continuing on a schedule of two weeks home, one week in. Dr Spears thinks that I'll only need to do 3 cycles in total, so that would end sometime in late February. At this point, the lymphoma should be in complete remission.

During this time, we're also going to take a trip to Washington DC for the Inauguration - at this point planning on being in DC from Jan 15 thru Jan 22 (so if anyone else is in the area, we could meet up for lunch maybe, say on Saturday Jan 17).

Probably a month after the chemo ends, but no later than two months (so late March through late April), they would start the process for the bone marrow transplant. The purpose of the transplant is conceptually to "seal" me into remission - make it very unlikely for me to have a relapse. We're hoping to be able to do it via donor - my brother and sister are going to be tested to see if they match, but if not, there is an international bone marrow donor registry they will start checking me against. There is a program to use my own bone marrow cells but by using a donor's cells, I gain their immune system basically and it makes it even more likely for me to be able to stay in remission a very long time.

So whichever sibling matches, would come out for about a week while they prepare them then get the cells they need. At that point, I would then be checked into Stanford for a week to receive the transplant but the key planning item is after that week, Dan and I need to live near Stanford (within their "safe zone") for 90 days. During the 90 days, I'll be in and out of their clinics a lot, plus if I have any type of rejection issues from the donation, they need me to immediately come in and be treated. My caregiver (Dan) needs to be with me 24/7 (except when I'm in the clinic - that gives him time to go grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning, or just relax and decompress for a bit). And we can have a backup caregiver - Dan's ex Manuel and Manuel's boyfriend Randy live in San Jose and we've already talked about times where Randy stays with me, while Dan and Manuel go to a movie or something.

Thankfully, Dan can pretty much continue his business from Stanford - a lot of it is on the computer and he's been hiring his sister since last March to help him - she knows a lot about the process now. So Dan could do the technical part, create the walk lists or flyers in PDF form, then send them to April here in Sacramento who prints them (or produces any other materials) and sends them to the client. There may be times where Dan needs to get back to Sacramento for a day or two - during crunch time of the campaigns, but again, Manuel and/or Randy (or someone else) could cover for Dan while he does this. So with Dan's normal income and my disability checks, financially we should do ok - even with the higher expenses (the one-bedroom apartments next to Stanford that they have available are $75/day so $2250/month - but my insurance may help cover part of that since it is necessary for my transplant). Oh, and then once the 90 days are over, we can go home, but I need to focus on health and maintenance for a while, so they advise me to NOT go back to work for 5 more months once I get home. Plus - during those 5 months, I'll occasionally be going back to Stanford (at first, once a week), as well as seeing my local doctors.

One BIG factor we haven't figured out is our current home, and especially our two dogs, especially for the 90 days when we're not here at all, but also possibly in the lead up to it. We have some ideas of how to handle this, but not positive yet - though then again, we JUST found out about what the transplant entails two days ago...

Fun, eh?