Today is my husband's birthday

The picture at left is my current view from the Big House. If the image looks a little grey, wet, and bleary it's because for the past two days, RVA has received significant amounts of moisture from the sky. Some would call it rain. Quite a darn lot of rain.

Praise God and pass the biscuits.

The building in the right portion of the picture is one of my favorite here on the MCV/VCU campus, maybe even in Richmond. It's the Egyptian Building, one of the older remaining on campus (Built in the 1920's, I think.). My snapshot does it little justice, but were my webcam a wee bit fancier, you be able to make out the fact that even the posts in the iron fence around the building have a lovely Egyptian shape to them. Man, they just don't make them like they used to.

What you probably can't make out, at the bottom of the picture, is the chaos of valet parking right in front of the Cancerville Clinic. There's the older gentleman valet who always gets the thankless job of helping direct the clueless goofballs through the intersection. Today, bless his heart, he was out there in the pouring rain in a bright blue poncho just waiving the cars along.

Also not quite visible in the photo, from lousy photo quality and grey haze, far in the background, beyond the tree line is the lovely James River. Maybe we're not a fancypants metropolis like New York or Chicago, but darn it, this is a pretty little city.

So life here in the Big House has been fairly uneventful. First night was pretty sleepless (Not as though I can get a full 8 hours in here anyway.), but I am making it up with some quality nap time. Today I actually crashed out for about two hours.

There are two prisoners from our illustrious city jail on the hall, possibly a third (I suspect from a county jail because his minder is dressed more like a sheriff-type.). The zombie warrior in me is somewhat relieved to know that there are a few fellows on the hall packing heat. Should there be a sudden swelling of undead masses in the hallway, hopefully these three will be able to hold them off long enough for me to make a break for the stairs, dragging Cletus along behind me.

One of the nurses told me that walking the length of the hallways on the floor eight times equals a mile. This gives me a goal on my daily strolls, and I think I might just attempt two miles today.

As you have probably already ascertained, today is The Mister's birthday. He was hoping to take Little A to King's (Demiff) Dominion for the evening, but the day's soaking rains kind of put the kibosh on that idea. They did stop by this afternoon for a little celebration and decadent chocolate ganache cake, provided by my mom and Fresh Market. While the rain isn't what he expected for a birthday treat, The Mister conceded that Richmond needed the rain more than he needed a trip to KD. Besides, I believe the consolation prize is a trip to the G-Force Go Karts tonight. Papa A races and Little A is his gleeful audience.

And to save the best for last, we got word today from the bone marrow team that a donor has been located. It's not a perfect match, more like a 9.5 to 10 point match thanks to my rare antigen. But it's a good enough fit for the doctors to want to progress further. There are a few more pieces left to fall into the puzzle. This donor has some further screenings to complete to make sure he/she is still a viable candidate health-wise (Meaning no syphilis or AIDS or other such yummy stuff), as well as agree to complete the process necessary to donate stem cells. I of course have to get my cancerous ass into remission and complete some of my own health screenings to determine that I am in a good way, besides the leukemia, to participate in the transplant.

If all the stars align, we'll be looking at the end of September to fire up the transplant train and get that sucker rolling out of the station.

Thanks to everyone for their prayers, positive thoughts, intercessions, meditations, and otherwise all manners of good juju that has been sent my way. Looks like you guys are a mighty powerful lobby; keep it up.

I am not above admitting that the transplant scares the living bajeebers out of me. But like the Good Book says:

I have set the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.

Psalms 16:8

Happy birthday, my beloved!