Quiet here so I thought I'd update you.

Things are going so well. My doctor was just in here, and he said, after reviewing the heart tests (echo and ekg), "Wow your heart looks great, not just good, but GREAT! and we're going to keep it that way, this Ara-C isn't going to touch it." He also said, "Keep running!" as he saw me going down the hall for a walk around the floor for exercise.

Hope I haven't already told you this, because I've noticed a wee bit of chemo brain where you forget things, so bear with me. My doctor loves that I was running this summer. I started off as a non-runner and got trained by a trainer who showed me through his book "The Everything Running Book" how to go from couch potato (not that I was) to a 5k in 3 months. This was a very slow building up and working on posture and breathing. As you start out walking 10 min, you build up 2 min. every other day until you're at 30 min. Then you start 2 min. running with the rest of the 30 min. walking, every other day adding 2 min. until your running time is 30 min. Then you do a 33 min, then a 36 and then a 39 min. run, before dropping back to 30 min. run. On the weekend you to do a harder run and a light run. So, I did that and because I went slow, my body had the time necessary to build up the cartilage so would you believe I never had 1 pain in my foot, ankles, shins or joints and because I was using Shaklee's products designed to rebuild muscle for athletes in training I never had an ounce of muscle pain! It was exhilarating seeing what my new healthy body could do! I loved improving each week as my body just seemed to know what it was doing and sort of took over, meaning it didn't feel HARD like if I had just gone out and started running off the bat.

My doctor, also said that it was the running that probably kept my leukemia in remission longer because when you do that kind of cardivascular excerise your body builds T-cells which are killer cells that attack cancer cells. So guess what? I was too busy to keep running with the schedule I had at the end of July and August, that I just couldn't fit my normal routine in. Turns out, after I stopped, fatigue increased and I started getting the symptoms of possible leukemia in mid to late August with just fatigue, then in September easy bruising and becoming pale (anemic). I was so healthy coming into this though that I was able to recognize these vague symptoms and head it off at the pass. My bone marrow was 50% healthy cells with 50 immature leukemic cells - incredible. Most people don't get diagnosed until they are 90-100% mature full blown leukemia. So you can see all that running paid off and I can't wait to get back to it again!

My doctor said there is a nicer hospital somewhere he's been at where they have treadmills in every room for their patients -- oh I wish we had that here! Maybe I could get a celebrity out there to pull some weight for me :) Don't you know those Divas would be able to have a treadmill in their room? LOL

So off to eat lunch now...I'm in a battle over the menus currently! I got them to change the menu to a regular menu because the soft menu is not necessary and has no fiber (it just has no raw foods on it). The reg. menu has fiber, but items I shouldn't have like fresh salads, so I just purposely don't select those, yet each new shift is scared when they see it so my trays get switched and they order me what they want and aye yie yie! It keeps going back and forth.

Praise God, I had a nice talk with my very good Dr. Wolliver about some supplement concerns - what would be good for me, what to stay away from and I liked his rationale. So, I can take certain things like B-Complex and VitalMag, but when I get through the treatments I can take my regular multivitamin (Vitalizer) and Vivix.
I have to stay away from Optiflora until my white cells are normalized after treatments. And I have to stay away from fish oils (OmegaGuard) of course b/c of my low platelets. So that was all kind of what I gathered anyway. It's just nice to have the doctor on the same team with my approach to build my body back to health once I get out of here. He's very supportive as he saw me 3 years ago and how I came back to full health with sound nutrition and taking care of my diet and exercise. Go team!

Waiting for my HLA-typed platelets now, it's not an emergency, but should be getting some hopefully today if they come in (I think they had to be flown in from somewhere else like AZ). See? Even you friends and family who live far away and want to do something you can help! Go to your local blood bank or whereever you would donate platelets and ask them for an appt. to donate platelets - tell them you'd like them HLA-typed for the bone marrow registry. (Do that whether or not you plan to register). That's what my doc said they do it like here so if you find out how to get your platelets HLA-typed where you are and it's different, I'm sorry!

Have a wonderful weekend! I'm waiting to hear how my boys did in their soccer matches today! You can click on their team blog on the list to the right to see photos of them in action and some good sports writing for the U7 team thanks to Mara!