Day +40

So, I've mentioned before that Kristen is fascinated by shows such as CSI or House. They always cover various medical oddities. Today she asked her doctor if she would have chimera. He confirmed that she would be chimeric. Chimerism is a disorder in which an animal or person has two or more DNA profiles. It can happen as a result of an allogenic transplant (non related donor) but can also happen naturally. Tetragametic chimerism can occur after organ or stem-cell transplantations. They have an immunologic tolerance to both sets of cells. So basically her blood has the DNA profile of the donor and the rest of her body has its original DNA. She thinks this is so cool. Imagine being in a group and they ask you to share something that no one knows about you. She would be able to say that she was chimeric. We also teased her that if she were to commit a crime she should only leave a blood trace not hair or skin. That way they couldn't trace it back to her!

Other than that interesting factoid, she is doing well. We are watching her liver functioning. She is having a slight rise in her counts there. They are not alarmed, it may only be caused by a medication that was recently added. If it continues to climb they will give her another medication to protect her liver. They are also pleased with her progress and we MAY get to drop down to only 2 visits a week instead of 3. We are all about that!

Devin is back in NW Arkansas. I had to take him to the airport early this morning before our 7 a.m. labs. I am a bit intimidated to blog after Devin's great blogs this weekend. I guess I'll have to step it up.

Now my own musing... As my plane began it's descent yesterday, we had a period of time where we had the wispy cirrus clouds above us and the fluffy cumulous below. In between was some of the most beautiful blue sky I've ever seen. I thought to myself how could you not believe in God when you have such beauty around you. I was excited this morning to find that my Oswald Chambers devotional was entitled "Do you see Jesus in your clouds?". (Go to http://www.myutmost.org/07/0729.html if you want to check this out. You'll have to cut and past since my blogging skills are not advanced enough yet to link this in. I'll work on that!) He points out that God does not want to teach us something in our trials but that he wants us to "unlearn" something. He wants our relationship with him to like a child. Simply Him and me. Think on that a bit. It's stuck with me today. What have a "learned" that is standing in my way of that child like relationship?