Day +1105: Three-year transplant anniversary

Mina's three-year transplant anniversary was last week, April 29. It's crazy because although we knew it was upcoming and we've actually been looking forward to this date since forever, the day actually slipped by us without us even remarking on it. I had to get up early that day and fly to Portland for a business meeting and didn't get back until the evening, so I didn't even see Mina. Keri and I finally talked about it the next day. It's a huge event, despite our non-chalance about it. Three years is the big anniversary after which a relapse woul really be a surprise, especially with an aggressive cancer like Mina's. No guarantees, of course, and there are lots of other things that could crop up at any time, but it's such great news that Mina is doing so well three years out from her transplant.

Even though we didn't mark the actual day, we did celebrate the occasion with our annual Russian River trip last weekend. We stayed at a little cabin in the trees near Cazadero, which is a few miles inland from the mouth of the Russian River, on a little stream called Austin Creek. The cabin was a one-bedroom, with a big common room that served as the kitchen, dining room and living room. Isaac called it the "kitchen cabin". The cabin is surrounded by redwoods, and we could walk down the bank to the creek about 30 yards from the house. The kids are now old enough that we could just open the door and let them play outside, which they loved. Isaac loved shoveling gravel from the driveway into buckets, and Mina was exploring around the house and looking for places to make her own house. We went to the beach both days and went for a short hike through a rhododendron grove on Sunday. It was really nice to get out of the city. The kids didn't want to come home (neither did we).

Mina has lots of appointments coming up. Tomorrow she has a pulmonary function test and an echocardiogram. It's so interesting to see her attitude towards her appointments now that she's older. She definitely has a lot more consciousness of the testing now, and she'll probably have memories of the appointments she's having now. She doesn't have any memories at all of her hospital time, thankfully. Next Wednesday she'll go back to the BMT clinic, and Dr. Loh will want to see her in oncology as well. Hopefully everything will turn up fine. We'll keep you posted.

We did receive some good news that is related to Mina's condition. We submitted a medical appeal to the SF school district, and it was accepted! That means Mina will go to the top of the waiting list for whatever public school we choose anywhere in the city. I was a little dubious that the appeal would be approved. You're supposed to have to demonstrate that your child has medical needs that the she was assigned to can't meet. We didn't really have anything specific to point to other than the fact that Mina will need careful monitoring. But when I looked at the complete package after we put it together, complete with the letter from Dr. Loh, I realized that it looked pretty impressive so maybe we had a shot after all. Although the situation is not fully resolved yet, it does look like we'll be able to find a good school for Mina after all. And Isaac will automatically get to go to whatever school Mina is attending. Now we just have to decide which school that would be.

The kids are really growing and thriving these days. Isaac is getting so big and long, he's almost as tall as Mina now. She still outweighs him by about 10 pounds, though. Julie called Keri the other day from school to tell her that the kids were playing "bank". She had overheard Mina telling another kid, "Interest rates are going up and I can't afford to make my loan payment!" We don't have a loan, so we have no idea where she got that one from. Another time Isaac had lost his helium balloon and was very sad. Mina told him "That's OK, your balloon is going up to heaven with grandpa!" She is really very sweet and nurturing with Isaac. The other day he had hurt his arm a little, and he allowed Mina to comfort him and kiss his arm. There are definitely some power plays that go on, but she's really good to him for the most part and he returns it with his love and trust.

Isaac is still doing the music thing. A while back I mentioned to Keri that it seemed to me that Isaac wasn't playing his instruments as much. But she told me that just that day Isaac had been really jamming on his guitar in the back room in front of the mirror, singing at the top of his lungs, "It's just not FAAAAAAIR.... But I don't CAAAAAAAARE...." And a couple of days later I heard him furiously strumming his guitar singing "My MOMMA told ME to BRUSH my TEETH by myself every DAAAAAAY..." Both the kids love to listen to music. One of their favorites is the Peter and the Wolf CD that Mom and Dad got for them. That's the one where the violins signify Peter, the French horns are the wolf, the oboe is the duck, the flute is the cat, etc. One day I was driving with the kids with the classical radio station on and a nice violin piece was playing. Mina noticed right away that it sounded like Peter. Then Isaac said "it sounds like Peter is running!" I though it was really interesting, and encouraging, that the kids would be interested enough in the music to think about it in that way.

Thanks for reading, I'll post again soon after Mina's appointments.