The last night as we know it

10/2/15-Here we are, the night before Steven will be admitted to City of Hope.  He has a 12 out of 12  bone marrow match!  We should be excited but there is no joy in Mudville.

But before I go on, how did we get to this point?  It started 5 years ago....

Thank goodness for the BSA physical that every scoutmaster has to have in order to participate in events.  Steven's blood counts were low.  What the heck?  It must be something simple like eating better or taking vitamins.  Repeat CBC, still low.  Ok, here comes the first bone marrow.  It's normal you say.  Well, we will just keep an eye on it.  Sounds great because he is only 55 after all.

If you Google low blood counts, you get a variety of reasons from laboratory error to the unthinkable.    I vote for lab error but as a former medical technologist, I know that is not the reason.  It's easy to avoid the truth, and easy to blame abnormal tests on simple reasons.

We have a million things to do: work, high school, masters, and doctorate graduations, empty nester fun, confirmations, cleaning the garage….oh wait, I didn't mean that one.  When Steven was "retired" in October 2014, we agreed that one of us had to get a full time job.  We need benefits!!  Thank goodness he was only without employment for 4 months.  Then came another bone marrow right around the holidays and finally a diagnosis- myelodysplastic syndrome also know as MDS.  What is it you say, besides pure hell?  It's the bone marrow's inability to produce normal cells, a proliferation of blasts instead of beautifully formed cells, the stage right before falling off the cliff into acute myeloid leukemia.  It's a stunning diagnosis for a medical technologist and an immunologist who has spent so much of his career finding cures for others.  Now we get to work our way through the stages of grief but more importantly, come up with a plan.  More on that later...