Day 101

I wrote a note on Tamara's blog asking her to keep us updated as she can, and I haven't written in 9 days!

Everything's well. I'm having some minor physical issues, but no graft-versus-host disease, my strength is increasing, and I blew through all my 100-day tests so that I can move to long-term care. I literally blew through them. The nurse-practitioner seemed pretty surprised when she informed me that my pulmonary function tests were better than before the transplant.

They checked my bone marrow. It's 100% donor, as are the two cell lines they check in my blood.

On May 3, that's this coming Thursday, I meet with the long-term doctor and nurse-practitioner (whose last name is Lucid, which seems like an interesting name to have). It's also possible (probable) that will be my last photopheresis treatment, which means I can have my central line taken out and quit having to Saran wrap myself (actually Press-N-Seal) to take a shower.

I'm back at home for my son's wedding, which is Sunday. After that, we'll spend next week doing appointments, and assuming they put me on long-term care on May 3, we'll begin moving back home the following week. I'll have been living in Nashville for almost 10 months by that point.

We're thrilled about the wedding. My son is 20 years old, and we're proud of him. We've not only seen him grow up, but his bride-to-be as well, whose name is Hadassah, though we just call her Dassi. I still remember teaching the both of them math in 4th and 5th grade when they were being home schooled and then Algebra as well in high school.

You may already know that I live in a Christian community. Our weddings are, well, spectacular. We haven't felt compelled to do traditional weddings, so the bride and groom dress in beautiful costumes from whichever era of history or civilization that appeals to them. (Of course, my son and soon-to-be daughter-in-law chose America, 21st century, so they'll be in a tuxedo and wedding dress.)

We don't do a traditional walk up the aisle, and there's no pastor at the front, though we have several of those. One of my favorite weddings was done in the woods just last year. The groom rode in on a horse:

As did the bride, with her father:

Noah and Dassi won't do the same. They'll enter to an old Twila Paris song, then take their place in seats at the front. There will be a microphone, and family and friends will get opportunity to bless the bride and groom or to tell some entertaining story from the past. There will be milling, coffee, pastries, pictures, and then a final dance with the bride and groom before they escape to their honeymoon, usually paid for as much by the friends they grew up with as by themselves.

I had hair at this wedding in 2010. That's my wife and I  in the back.

Tonight, there's a love feast. Bread, wine, and lots of praises. I can't drink any wine at all due to medication I'm on. In fact, I was told not even to wash my mouth with an alcoholic mouth wash. (We drink wine at our love feasts, but drunkenness is something the Scripture forbids to us.) Tomorrow there's a dinner with all the visiting family, and the wedding is Sunday morning.

Finally, though, one more picture of Sunday's bride and groom, enjoying themselves with friends:

That's Dassi and Noah up front, my daughter Janelle on drums, and a friend, whose camera took this picture, on guitar.