Not a lot going on the last couple of weeks. We're in the waiting zone now until the 13th of next month when I go in for the stem cell transplant. I'll be getting my own back which is the "traditional" treatment for now.

How does something get to be traditional in what, 10 maybe 15 years? Maybe it's just a language thing since the coordinator is not a native speaker of English. Perhaps he meant usual, or preferred.

My brother is a high resolution match which means that if I reject my own stem cells we can try to use his. This is good, but only in a not so good way. It's good that I have the best genetic match possible, but if I need it things are bad.

Which is also good and bad. It's good because the chances of rejection with my brother's stem cells are are only 10% or so. Bad because with a stranger's it goes to 33%. I'm rooting for my guys.

Otherwise, the last couple of weeks have been pretty good. No more chemo until June, only one more PET scan and that's not for a couple of weeks, my body has begun to recover from the ravages of chemical treatment, which from the outside, you'd never know were happening. Except for the hairlessness. Even my eyebrows are almost gone now. Although I am getting what is literally peach fuzz on my dome and face. A bit thicker this time than before but doomed to removal since I've still got one more round of hard core chemo coming.

And for my skin. Got some weird stuff going on there. I still bruise very easily and my skin is not nearly as resilient as it used to be. I have always been fond to walking around barefoot. Miles at a time, pavement or concrete, sand grass whatever, no problem. There was a point in the long ago that I could walk on glass. I'm not prone to blisters.

Oddly though, on a short walk, maybe 1/2 mile on pavement, I managed to get some good sized blisters on both the balls of my feet and each heel. Just a month before I made the same walk, going close to 1 1/2 miles with no problem at all. I can only attribute this to the chemo. Come to think on it though, I am not going barefoot as much as I used to, not as active in general as much as I used to be. That could be a contributor to the ease with which I blistered. But I still think it's mostly from the chemo.

Haven't had any stomach acid either, which is also a bonus. That stuff really sucks. Oddly, the joints in my ankles and knees seem to be more loosely attached than previously. My gait seems, feels, different. I have had both ankles turn when walking, over obstacles that previously were no problem to navigate. Rocks, cracks in pavement, humps in the ground, all have made themselves known to me in the last few months more than ever before. No problems as yet, but definitely noticeably different.

All things considered, I guess I'm in pretty good shape.