Ozard/Casey at the Bat (Strike 3? We'll see)

Friends:

Here it is, kids. My amazing doctors, Selina Luger and Michel Hoessly--who have been my advocate and champion from the first week I was diagnosed, and with whom we have always felt that my care was nothing less than an exemplary vision of collaborative medicine--have once again come through for me. (And, to be frank, their care was the qualitative opposite of the fearful, CYA type of Buster Keaton-like care I endured just over a week ago--a kind of care that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt was an anomoly, especially at a place like the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania, where I have always received nothing but the finest care, save those three days.)

Selina, who behind her tough, business-as-usual facade is an extraorinarily kind and gracious doctor, clearly performed some who's zooming who magic and dropped her shoulders and made like Barry Sanders-meets-Jim Brown and with all of her collective power and persuasion pushed me back into queue for the "Total Body Irradiation," which only a few days ago was once again filled until the new year.

Hallelujah!

This means that I am once again back in line to have that long-delayed Stem Cell Transplant. Indeed, if all goes well, I will be admitted to HUP on November 30 to start my transplant only four weeks late from the original date.

I'm hoping that Ernie Harwell will make the call:

Strike one, took a bad pitch up around the nose. Ozard has a long history with broken noses and sports related injuries, including some caused by worrying about sports.

Strike two, that was just a bad call folks, plain and simple. It was a ball, way inside, up around the chest.

(and then, finally....)
Here's the pitch, Ozard swings and its a towering drive over the right field upper deck here at Tiger Stadium. No doubt about it, he's done his part. Now, here come Luger, Hoessly and his various teammates to keep those runs coming.

OK, enough with the dopey baseball metaphors. I'll put my mind to it and see if we can come up with something more hockey-centered.

Meanwhile... the process I'm about to start is essentially identical to what I’ve described to you before the first two transplants were cancelled:

On Monday I have some bloodwork done, then an UltraSound of my heart to make sure that there's nothing wrong with the ticker.

Assuming that goes without either interruption or problem, the next day (11/30) I’ll check into the hospital, be injected with Malphalan, the poisonous chemo substance designed to kill as many of the Myeloma cells as possible.

The next three days, twice a day, morning and evening, I’ll roll down to radiology where I’ll receive TBI—Total Body Irradiation: the Hiroshima stuff I’ve joked about in the past. Again, the goal here is more of the same; to kill as much of the Myeloma as possible.

Finally, right after the last bit of radiation zapping, I’ll be given my stem cells (the “Transplant” itself).

That’s that.

Other than that, it’s the same, except that I feel it in a more timely, urgent way than ever before.

Please, please, please pray for us. I'm feeling the gravity of this more this time around, and can't help myself--I’m very afraid.

Thanks for your kindness and prayers.

Love, dwight

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