stem cell transplant ready to go and other stuff

Transplant is set
it is official. my first appointment to start the transpalnt process is Feb 10. then away we go. after a week of evaluarions and medical work ups, including a bone marrow biopsy we head out on the journey. depending on the biopsy results i either get pre chemo or move right to the cell harvest. assuming that no pre chemo is needed I will go in for a few days in a row and have stem cells taken from my blood and stored in the freezer. this will be done out patient at Cancer care Alliance. The a a couple days of chemo that will KO the bad cells and some good ones. after that the good stem cells come out of the freezer. at this point my ammunities will be low and I will spend some time in the hospital at UW. after that it's home for out patient care and recovery at hopme with my loving care giver and wife Chrystal. keep her in your thoughts and prayers in case I am a whinner! :) oh and the dr says this time I will feel like crap for a few weeks from the chemo and likely will lose my hair. If that happens a a whole bunch of union firefoighters have promise a head shave.

State Workers Comp needs fixed
Regence came through with pre approval, but L&I continues to drag thier feel like they are wearing Jimmy Hoffa Sr's shoes. They still show my claim pending since 9/15/09 and are incredibly slow returning calls. after 5 days of calls they called and said we should have this wrapped up with in a week. I don't get it! What do they not understand about the part of the stae law that says, "PRESUMTIVE". brother and sister firefighters can and have died waiting for treatment. I guess they figure they can balance the budget by not reimbursing the $200,000 regence has already paid, plus the $250,000 for the transplant.

A few more things I forgot
some have asked about the treatment leading to remission. I went through 6 cycles of velcad, each cycle is 21 days with 3 treatments. in addition i took 40 mg of dexamethasone once a week. this started in july and went until Nov 27. I still take the steroids. In July my Kappa lights chains were 11,000, Thats bad! today they are 120, thats good. I feel great and while I am nervuos about the transplant Chrystal and I have talke and prayed and prayed and talked and know we are doing the right thing.