So I am very sad to say that Travis and Big Tam left today :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(  It was so fun having them here and it sucks to see them go.

As Trav mentioned in his post, he got a first hand experience of my crazy life going back and forth to MD Anderson.  Tam joined us on Thursday the 1st and she got to administer shots for both me and Trav.  Friday I had appointments to get my heart checked (EKG), X-rays (chest) and CT scan (sinuses).  After my appointments we headed down to Kemah to meet up with my dad and have dinner on the boardwalk.  We cruised around and went on the ferris wheel :)  It was a very nice night :) My dad got us a hotel room so me, case, tam and trav stayed in clear lake that night.  The next day we all packed into dad's car and went to the space station museum.  We got a tour of the control station and the Saturn 5 rocket.  It was HUGE! We also saw moon rocks :)

Last weekend was labor day weekend so we had a little party on sunday at Jan and Janet's house with the fam, Tiffany and Josh and my neighbors Melissa and Daniel.  My dad made gumbo while my brother FINALLY played his ukulele.  Mind you it was the ONLY time he played :(  unfortunately the night didn't end up too well for me and tam; I'm not sure what made us sick but we were both throwing up by the end of the night and I went to the ER at MDA to see if they could help me.  Me and Cass were there until 4:30 am (with him having work that day at 10:00am) because they were so slow at everything they did.  My blood work was normal which told us nothing as to why I got so sick.  Monday was spent recovering from our poor tummies.

I have been going every other day to the fertility clinic for blood and ultrasounds to check my follicles and see how fast they are growing.  My left ovary had 3 large follicles while my right had around 6.  Towards the end of my cycle with injections, I had around 15 follicles in my ovaries.  Today I had them retrieved and the doctor took out 13 eggs.  Of the 13 eggs only 7 were mature enough to fertilize.  I opted to have all of them fertilized (instead of the original plan of 50/50) because they told me the eggs were not in the best condition (thanks to 2 previous rounds of chemo I suspect).  The clinic will call me tomorrow to tell me how many eggs fertilized and if the embryos are developing properly.  The procedure was very short and I don't remember a thing.  I was given an IV and a sedative that put me out so fast I don't remember falling asleep at all.  Next thing I know I woke up on the bed and my uterus felt like someone poked 2 holes in it (which they did).  After receiving a pain killer and attempting to eat a bagel me and mom headed home while Cass went to work.  On the way home, however, I threw up into a mailing envelope and I have been nauseous since.  It's like pre-chemo nauseousness.  awesome.  And to make it worse, Cassidy came home early because he's feeling sick :( :( I hope we feel better soon.

Tomorrow I will do the same again by waking up bright and early (before the sun is up) and get my blood drawn and then have my sub-clavian catheter put in.  That will require sedation and I'm hoping that I don't get as sick afterwards like today.  Monday I will be going under sedation (AGAIN) for my bone marrow biopsy (#4).  Due to my egg harvesting pushing later into the week than was expected my move-in date to the hospital was pushed back a day to the 13th (tuesday).  If all goes well I should be starting chemotherapy on the 14th.  oh joy.

Anyways..I'm feeling sick so i will update again soon.


love you all!

-sav