Happy 2nd Birthday, Mina Brigitta!

What a wonderful day we had today. Kristin and Teri were here, and Amber came at about 1:00. I stayed home from work to be with my family today, and we pretty much just hung out all day long. She opened presents throughout the day and mostly played games with the girls. Mina Brigitta didn't need or want to spend much time with me today, because she was more than entertained with Teri and Kristin, and then Amber. That's a good thing. She had a great time with Kristin while she was here, and it was sad to see her go. I took advantage of the opportunity to spend some quality time alone with my son, which I haven't had much chance to do recently.

We had a leisurely lunch, then played more games in the afternoon, and then Keri and Mina Brigitta drove Kristin to the airport in the late afternoon so Mina would nap, while Teri, Amber and I sat around chit-chatting with Isaac napping on my lap. The phone kept ringing all day long with happy birthday calls. She gets on the phone and says "Hi!", but usually doesn't know what else to say. But when Nicholas was on she said "Kiki der!", and when Kari, Steve and Carmen called she said "Uncle der!". Carmen sang her a couple of songs, and she said "Yay!" after each one.

Amber was set to leave at about 6:30, but her dinner plans were cancelled so she came right back in and stayed for dinner. She regaled us all day with stories of her adventures in New Zealand and Australia; I kind of felt like I was living vicariously through her. I have such clear and meaningful memories of my travels, and I love to hear stories of other people's. Then she read books with Mina until she was just about out. Right when Amber was ready to go, Mina wanted "up with Anta", so Teri put her the rest of the way down.

All in all, a leisurely yet very satisfying and rejuvenating day, just what the doctor ordered. Tomorrow it's back to reality a bit; they're doing a CT scan of Mina Brigitta's sinuses, just to check up on the mucosal thickening that her last scan showed was still lingering from her bout with RSV. That means Mina Brigitta won't be able to eat or drink until after the appointment, which is at 11:30.

We did get some good news today: the results of Thursday's minimal residual disease test came back and showed that the latest round of chemo knocked it down from 0.7% of white blood cells in the bone marrow to 0.03%. This is much better than I had hoped for, and as far as I can tell is a pretty good number to have going into the transplant.