Today I am blogging about a more serious topic. It's not something I generally talk about. I'm not sure why. I just don't. April 4 was the 7 year anniversary of the day I donated stem cells to help save the life of a man with AML, Acute myelogenous leukemia. I'm not writing about this to say, "look what I did" or brag in any way...I think that's why I usually don't talk about it, I don't want it to ever come across like that. But I am writing about it to inform other people about bone marrow/stem cell donation and encourage anyone who is interested to join the registry. This can give you the opportunity to save someones life through donation while you are still alive - you can watch it happen. There are many instances in my life where God has led me to do things...my follow through hasn't always been 100%, but never in my life have I felt God leading me to do something the way He did when I put my name on the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry.
In October, 2003 I was 19 years old and a sophomore in college at Western Kentucky University. I went to my dorm room one day and my roommate told me about a bone marrow drive being held in a few days for a young man in Bowling Green who had leukemia. His sister was a match and they did the transplant, but unfortunately she was too close of a match (whatever that means) and his body rejected her bone marrow. So his family was holding a huge drive to get more people on the registry and hopefully find a match for him. I have never in my life felt so strongly that I needed to do something. God may as well have written on my dorm wall, "Kelly, go to this!!!!" So a few days later we went to the drive and of course had to fill out some paperwork. One of the first questions asked if I wanted to just be checked as a match for just this local man, or if I wanted to be placed on the national registry. After a brief hesitation, I checked to be on the national registry. They drew some blood, no big deal, and after a week or so I forgot about it. Three months later, January 2004, (a few weeks after Ronnie and I started dating) I got a phone call from the Central Kentucky Blood Center telling me that I was a possible match for a man with AML and asking if I wanted to undergo further blood testing to see if I was a perfect match. I was shocked to have already heard something, but anxious to see if I was a match! A couple of days later I went to the hospital to have more bloodwork done and soon found out that I was a match. I received tons of phone calls, paperwork, booklets, etc to make sure I was informed of everything that would happen and to make sure this was really something I wanted to do. But, of course, when you find out that you can save the life of someone who is dying, and could very well be the only person who could, how do you say no to that? So the process continued. I went to the hospital several times over the next couple of months for blood work. There were lots of conversations regarding the type of transplant I would do - bone marrow or stem cell. I ended up not having a choice. A stem cell transplant works faster than a bone marrow transplant, and the man I was donating to was getting very, very sick. On Easter Sunday, April 3, 2004, my mom and I traveled to Lexington. My transplant was to be the next morning at the University of Kentucky hospital. I felt terrible. The last several days I had to receive injections to make my body produce more stem cells. I was told that the recipient was a large man in his 40's, and I wasn't a very large 19 year old girl, so I needed to make a lot of stem cells. They told me the injections would cause me to have flu like symptoms, and they weren't kidding. It was a rough few days. When we got to the hospital the wonderful lady from the Blood Center who had been with me through everything was there waiting for me. Normally people would donate stem cells the same way they would donate blood...through your arm. You would actually have blood coming out of one arm, filtering through a machine to separate the stem cells, then going back into your other arm. However, since I was small and my recipient was large, they needed a lot of stem cells and that procedure would have taken 2 days to complete. So, I had a central line placed in my jugular vein so that the process would only take about 6 hours. That was not fun, especially since I do NOT handle medical procedures well. I even had to lie down at the hospital any time they would take just a few small vials of blood. Having a central line inserted into my neck wasn't fun. But I survived and we began. To my surprise the procedure only ended up taking about 4-5 hours. Once the extra stem cells started coming out I felt sooo much better. By the time I was completely finished I actually felt great, and I was starving! Then came the coolest part. As soon as they were finished the stem cells were packed into a cooler and someone literally bolted from the hospital to board a plane and take the stem cells to my recipient who was waiting for them. I felt like I was in a movie!!
A few days later I received a call telling me that the transplant was a success - I knew it would be! He was doing great. Yay!! It was the most amazing feeling to know that I had saved someone's life. I could only imagine the celebration that was going on in a hospital somewhere (I never knew where he was from, though I have reasons to suspect Texas).
You can do this too!! It's so easy to be placed on the national registry - it doesn't even involve blood!! Here is the Be The Match website and here is the page to get started joining the registry. You just fill out a registration form, then you will receive a small package in the mail and must collect a swab of cheek cells to mail back. Simple as that! Ross actually recived his package in the mail today and in about 30 seconds he had it ready to mail back. Know that your chances of matching are extremely slim. Throughout my experience I met a ton of people who told me they had been on the registry for 10, 20, 30 years and never matched up with anyone. For me to match up with someone in just 3 short months was almost unheard of. Divine intervention is what I like to call it.
Unfortunately the man who received my stem cells passed away 8 months after the transplant, December 2004. Unrelated to AML, he suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage. I was absolutely devastated when I heard the news. I couldn't understand how we could both go through all that we did for him to die 8 months later. I don't know what happened to him in the last 8 months of his life, but I know it was important. Though this was upsetting news, I knew that there was a reason he needed 8 more months, and I was honored to be able to give that to him.
Please consider doing this. I'll admit the procedure wasn't pleasant, there was some pain and there were some tears, but I would do it again in a second. Especially when I think about it being my loved one who needed help. I know we would all do anything to save the lives of our family, so why not do it for a stranger, someone else's family. As scary as it is to think about, you never know when it could be your family member who needs to help of a stranger to survive. I can tell you that it is one of the best experiences I have ever had in my life.
The last few months I have really had a desire to reach out to people about bone marrow donation. Before my donation it was something that I really knew nothing about. I had heard of bone marrow transplants and knew that it was generally for children and adults with leukemia, but I didn't really know how people donated, or realize that it was a live donation, or understand that you could donate to a complete stranger. But you can and I hope some of you will decide to join the registry! And please feel free to ask me any questions! I would love to talk to anyone about this amazing experience that I had. :) God Bless!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
Kendall is 1! The Stats...
Kendall had her one year checkup on her birthday, April 7. It's not too fun to get 3 shots on your birthday!! But other than that, her appointment went well!
Our "chunky monkey" continues her downward slide away from chunkiness. She is 20 lbs 2 oz (35th%), 30 inches (75th%) and big ol' noggin came in at 97th%!! No wonder she isn't walking yet, she has quite the heavy load on top!! In the past, at 12 months and 20 lbs you can turn carseats from rear facing to forward facing. This wasn't the case with Ella, since she was rear facing until she finally reached 20 lbs at 18 months. The AAP recently changed their recommendation and now want babies to remain rear facing until age 2. It isn't law yet, but it is the official recommendation. Right now Kendall remains rear facing. For some reason people like to give me a hard time about this...I'm not sure why. There is no question at all that it is safest...in the most common type of car accident a rear facing child would have support of their neck and head, while a forward facing child would be more likely to have a broken neck. Yes, their legs may at some point get long and touch the seat, but I would rather my child have a broken leg than a broken neck! And Kendall is very happy in the car seat...she doesn't know any different and she rarely cries in the car. If she is happy and she is safer, then why change! So anyway, this concludes my car seat safety rant! Dr. Bindner said she looked great. She says about 4 words...Mama (though she rarely uses it lately), Dada, Ella (her most used word!) and Hi. She said that was right on track. The thing I was most concerned about was her eating, but Dr. Bindner said what I'm doing is great. At that time she had NO interest in solid food and would usually only eat YoBaby yogurt or banana-based baby food. She had just started eating cheerios, puffs, yogurt melts, and little baby snacky things like that. Dr. Bindner advised me to just continue to offer her a variety of things and eventually she would start to eat more things. Since the appointment she has been doing better. She will eat torn up pieces of whole grain wheat bread, take bites of bananas, eat a variety of crackers and vanilla wafers, and she actually really loves broccoli!! And the other day Ella and I were eating a frozen pizza and Kendall was nearly climbing out of her high chair to get to it. I gave her a few small pieces and she LOVED it! It isn't the ideal food for my 12 month old, but I was just happy to see her branching out! And she is completely on whole milk now. YAY!! I started mixing whole milk with frozen breastmilk a few days before her birthday and by the day after her birthday she was completely on whole milk. I'm very, very, very happy to be finished breastfeeding! And the best part about that is Kendall is no longer waking up at 5 a.m. every morning to eat. That was rough. I am happy to report that we are all sleeping through the night - in fact Kendall sleeps 11-12 hours straight each night. Yay! I forgot how awesome it was to get 8 straight hours of sleep! She is only taking one nap, but that is fine with me, I'd prefer her take one long nap in the afternoon as opposed to two short naps during the day.
As I mentioned before, Kendall isn't walking yet but I think she probably will be within the next 2 weeks. She took her first two steps and mom and dad's house last weekend. My dad and Ronnie witnessed this - my dad alone witnessed her crawling for the first time, so he's pretty excited! A couple of days ago she took 4 steps two different times. I think she could probably walk across the room right now if she wanted to, but she isn't motivated enough just yet. She'll stand up and you can see the conflict in her face...she wants to go so badly but is scared, so she stands there and thinks about it for a few minutes, then just sits down. If she does muster up the courage to take a couple of steps she will sit back down before she gets off balance to avoid a fall.
Kendall has become a lot of fun lately. She has a few "tricks". She will give high-fives and "pat" things when asked. If you ask her where her tongue is she will open her mouth and say "ahhhhh!" She won't stick her tongue out, but it is still really cute!! The other day we were in the living room and I saw her straining and grunting. I was like, "Kendall are you pooping?" She crawled across the floor to where I have a box of wipes in the TV stand, pulled the box down, looked at me, and patted on the wipes. Maybe she will be an early potty trainer!!
In my last post I forgot to mention our festivities on Kendall's actual birthday. That morning started out kind of rough, as I took Ella for an allergy shot (never a happy event) and followed that up with Kendall's checkup, which went well aside from ending it with three vaccinations. When we got home we gave her her presents. Ronnie and I gave her a chair like Ella's monogrammed with her name. Actually it was Ella's old chair with a new slipcover. :) If you remember, Ella got an upgrade for her 3rd birthday. Ella wanted to giver her a baby doll, so we found a baby doll and a book for her to give her. Some how, with the gazillion books we have, we never have owned a copy of The Very Hungry Catepillar, so we took care of that. That night we had friends over and grilled out and had cupcakes to celebrate K's birthday. We were so glad that Joey, Ashley, Gavin, Graham, Nic, Toni, Grace, Jason & Susan were able to celebrate with us!
Yay! Presents!
Our "chunky monkey" continues her downward slide away from chunkiness. She is 20 lbs 2 oz (35th%), 30 inches (75th%) and big ol' noggin came in at 97th%!! No wonder she isn't walking yet, she has quite the heavy load on top!! In the past, at 12 months and 20 lbs you can turn carseats from rear facing to forward facing. This wasn't the case with Ella, since she was rear facing until she finally reached 20 lbs at 18 months. The AAP recently changed their recommendation and now want babies to remain rear facing until age 2. It isn't law yet, but it is the official recommendation. Right now Kendall remains rear facing. For some reason people like to give me a hard time about this...I'm not sure why. There is no question at all that it is safest...in the most common type of car accident a rear facing child would have support of their neck and head, while a forward facing child would be more likely to have a broken neck. Yes, their legs may at some point get long and touch the seat, but I would rather my child have a broken leg than a broken neck! And Kendall is very happy in the car seat...she doesn't know any different and she rarely cries in the car. If she is happy and she is safer, then why change! So anyway, this concludes my car seat safety rant! Dr. Bindner said she looked great. She says about 4 words...Mama (though she rarely uses it lately), Dada, Ella (her most used word!) and Hi. She said that was right on track. The thing I was most concerned about was her eating, but Dr. Bindner said what I'm doing is great. At that time she had NO interest in solid food and would usually only eat YoBaby yogurt or banana-based baby food. She had just started eating cheerios, puffs, yogurt melts, and little baby snacky things like that. Dr. Bindner advised me to just continue to offer her a variety of things and eventually she would start to eat more things. Since the appointment she has been doing better. She will eat torn up pieces of whole grain wheat bread, take bites of bananas, eat a variety of crackers and vanilla wafers, and she actually really loves broccoli!! And the other day Ella and I were eating a frozen pizza and Kendall was nearly climbing out of her high chair to get to it. I gave her a few small pieces and she LOVED it! It isn't the ideal food for my 12 month old, but I was just happy to see her branching out! And she is completely on whole milk now. YAY!! I started mixing whole milk with frozen breastmilk a few days before her birthday and by the day after her birthday she was completely on whole milk. I'm very, very, very happy to be finished breastfeeding! And the best part about that is Kendall is no longer waking up at 5 a.m. every morning to eat. That was rough. I am happy to report that we are all sleeping through the night - in fact Kendall sleeps 11-12 hours straight each night. Yay! I forgot how awesome it was to get 8 straight hours of sleep! She is only taking one nap, but that is fine with me, I'd prefer her take one long nap in the afternoon as opposed to two short naps during the day.
As I mentioned before, Kendall isn't walking yet but I think she probably will be within the next 2 weeks. She took her first two steps and mom and dad's house last weekend. My dad and Ronnie witnessed this - my dad alone witnessed her crawling for the first time, so he's pretty excited! A couple of days ago she took 4 steps two different times. I think she could probably walk across the room right now if she wanted to, but she isn't motivated enough just yet. She'll stand up and you can see the conflict in her face...she wants to go so badly but is scared, so she stands there and thinks about it for a few minutes, then just sits down. If she does muster up the courage to take a couple of steps she will sit back down before she gets off balance to avoid a fall.
Kendall has become a lot of fun lately. She has a few "tricks". She will give high-fives and "pat" things when asked. If you ask her where her tongue is she will open her mouth and say "ahhhhh!" She won't stick her tongue out, but it is still really cute!! The other day we were in the living room and I saw her straining and grunting. I was like, "Kendall are you pooping?" She crawled across the floor to where I have a box of wipes in the TV stand, pulled the box down, looked at me, and patted on the wipes. Maybe she will be an early potty trainer!!
In my last post I forgot to mention our festivities on Kendall's actual birthday. That morning started out kind of rough, as I took Ella for an allergy shot (never a happy event) and followed that up with Kendall's checkup, which went well aside from ending it with three vaccinations. When we got home we gave her her presents. Ronnie and I gave her a chair like Ella's monogrammed with her name. Actually it was Ella's old chair with a new slipcover. :) If you remember, Ella got an upgrade for her 3rd birthday. Ella wanted to giver her a baby doll, so we found a baby doll and a book for her to give her. Some how, with the gazillion books we have, we never have owned a copy of The Very Hungry Catepillar, so we took care of that. That night we had friends over and grilled out and had cupcakes to celebrate K's birthday. We were so glad that Joey, Ashley, Gavin, Graham, Nic, Toni, Grace, Jason & Susan were able to celebrate with us!
Yay! Presents!
Ella's first time meeting "Baby Grace". She told Toni, "She's beautiful!" Grace says, "No pictures, please."
More cake!
First I have to smash it...
What?
Birthday Girl!
Kendall is 1!! And, this post is a little overdue because she has now been 1 year old for a week and a half. Woops!
Kendall's birthday is April 7, but we decided to celebrate a little early and had a party with family on Sunday, April 3. Kendall and Ella were very excited to have the majority of our family at our house - my Mom and Dad, Travis, Andrea, Mammaw (Debbie), Tara, Daniel, Hannah, Ross, Laura, Tim, Charlie, Peyton, Mark, and our neighbor Cheri were all able to celebrate with us. Cheri made an adorable ladybug cake and smash cake for Kendall. Check it out...
Kendall was nearly late for the show. She took a long nap and I finally had to wake her up because we were all just sitting around waiting for the guest of honor. She had a fantastic time at her party. She wasn't all that into opening presents, but of course big sister Ella was there to assist! She did, however, have a great time playing with her new toys after they were opened! Mammaw gave Kendall (and Ella!) a wagon, and they had a great time riding in it after the boys got it all put together! Mom and Dad gave her a toybox for her room. It has been great, and Kendall enjoys playing in her room a lot more now that all her toys are in the toybox. Kendall also received a ton of other toys, some cute clothes, and some money for her savings account. When it came time for cake I was very anxious to see how Kendall would react. Ella barely even touched her cake on her first birthday, but I thought our chunky monkey might go the other route. Though at the same time I wasn't sure because she is not into solid foods at all. Turns out she loved smashing the cake with her hands, and once she got a taste of it she was all over it!! It was pretty funny...and messy!
The birthday girl is awake and ready to party!
WKU Chick!
I want this big one!
Big sister is ready to help!
Where's the cake?
Happy Birthday to you!
Now I have the hang of it!
I'm done now!
Fun in the wagon!
The girls with Aunt Tara and Mammaw
The girls with Grandma and Grandpa
Thanks to our wonderful family who made Kendall's 1st Birthday super special!
Saturday, April 2, 2011
The Greatest Show on Earth!
On Thursday night Ronnie and I had one of our most fun experiences as parents – we took Ella to the circus!! This was the first time for all three of us, and we had an absolute blast.
Ella was in desperate need for some Mommy & Daddy time without Kendall. She’s had a rough few weeks. Since Kendall was born she will occasionally go through stages of regression. I'm certain it is in response to the attention Kendall demands, but this has by far been the worst one. I try so hard to give Ella as much attention as I do Kendall, but it is extremely difficult to divide it evenly, as Kendall requires so much right now. I am hopeful that this will soon get better as Kendall is getting older (she will be 1 on Thursday!). I am finished breastfeeding (hallelujah!) thanks to some freezer-stored milk that will be used until she is completely on whole milk in about another week, so that in itself will allow me to have more Ella-time.
So anyway, I was so excited when I found out Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey was coming to the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville. We had never been to the circus, and I had also never been to the KFC Yum! Center and was really anxious to check it out. The Center is operated by the Fair Board, my former employer, and I did a lot of work involving the Center, so I was really anxious to see it! It was absolutely phenomenal. We are so lucky to have such an amazing facility in Louisville! There has been a lot of talk regarding an NBA team coming to the facility. I have no idea how much of that is true, but that Center could definitely support a team! If you haven’t seen it yet it is definitely worth a visit!
We left Kendall at home with Uncle Ross. She was not happy to see us leave without her, but she survived! As much as Ella needed time away from Kendall, Kendall needed time away from Mommy! She would disagree, but she definitely needed a reminder that people other than Mommy are perfectly capable of caring for her. :) It worked out perfect that the circus was on Thursday, because that is also “kids eat free” night at Ella’s favorite place to eat – Chick-Fil-A. When I ran the 5K a few weeks ago I got a coupon for a free sandwich, so we all ate for just the price of Ronnie’s meal. Sweet! We got to the circus early and found a nice, free parking spot on the street a few blocks away. The entire walk to the Center, Ella kept saying “Are we at the circus? Is this the circus? Are we there yet?” I’ve never seen her so excited about something! When we arrived we walked around a checked out the Center a little bit. I was pretty pumped to see Homemade Ice Cream & Pie Kitchen vendors, though I opted out of a $6 ice cream cone. Ouch. We wanted to get Ella a souvenier, but the last thing we need in our house is another stuffed animal, so we bought her a cute t-shirt. We found our seats, which were much better than I expected them to be. We were pretty close to the floor and had a great view…though I don’t think that arena has a bad view. When the circus finally began I thought Ella was going to lose it. I’ve never, ever seen her so excited. She kept clapping her hands and yelling “whooooo!!!!” Ronnie and I were cracking up watching her. It was so much fun to see her so excited! She kept leaning over and giving us hugs, saying “I love you Mommy! I love you Daddy!” Then she would say “Where are the elephants? Where are the tigers? Are the animals coming out now?”
The show was amazing. Ronnie and I were as mesmerized as Ella. During the intermission I took Ella for a potty break then let her pick out a snack. I thought she would go for popcorn…she loves popcorn, but the child sitting in front of us was eating a snowcone so she had her heart set on one. So she ended up with a $10 snowcone. But, it was in a really cool elephant souvenir bowl. After intermission the tigers came out. That part was really cool. Then nine elephants came out and they were awesome. I think that was probably Ella’s favorite.
After the circus ended we were walking back to the car and Ronnie asked Ella what her favorite part was. Without hesitation she said, “My favorite part was when the elephant pooped!!” Of course a three yar old's favorite part of the circus would have to involve poop!! Apparently one of the elephants dropped a bomb during their routine. I missed that, but it didn’t get past Ella! Ronnie saw it too, and didn’t know how I could have missed it. I sure hate that I did. ;)
We had a blast at the circus. It was so fun to see Ella so excited! Since it was the first circus for all of us, we were all pretty excited! It was great to have some time with our big girl and hopefully it made her feel pretty special. We certainly feel pretty special to be blessed with such a sweet, energetic and happy daughter!
Ella was in desperate need for some Mommy & Daddy time without Kendall. She’s had a rough few weeks. Since Kendall was born she will occasionally go through stages of regression. I'm certain it is in response to the attention Kendall demands, but this has by far been the worst one. I try so hard to give Ella as much attention as I do Kendall, but it is extremely difficult to divide it evenly, as Kendall requires so much right now. I am hopeful that this will soon get better as Kendall is getting older (she will be 1 on Thursday!). I am finished breastfeeding (hallelujah!) thanks to some freezer-stored milk that will be used until she is completely on whole milk in about another week, so that in itself will allow me to have more Ella-time.
So anyway, I was so excited when I found out Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey was coming to the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville. We had never been to the circus, and I had also never been to the KFC Yum! Center and was really anxious to check it out. The Center is operated by the Fair Board, my former employer, and I did a lot of work involving the Center, so I was really anxious to see it! It was absolutely phenomenal. We are so lucky to have such an amazing facility in Louisville! There has been a lot of talk regarding an NBA team coming to the facility. I have no idea how much of that is true, but that Center could definitely support a team! If you haven’t seen it yet it is definitely worth a visit!
We left Kendall at home with Uncle Ross. She was not happy to see us leave without her, but she survived! As much as Ella needed time away from Kendall, Kendall needed time away from Mommy! She would disagree, but she definitely needed a reminder that people other than Mommy are perfectly capable of caring for her. :) It worked out perfect that the circus was on Thursday, because that is also “kids eat free” night at Ella’s favorite place to eat – Chick-Fil-A. When I ran the 5K a few weeks ago I got a coupon for a free sandwich, so we all ate for just the price of Ronnie’s meal. Sweet! We got to the circus early and found a nice, free parking spot on the street a few blocks away. The entire walk to the Center, Ella kept saying “Are we at the circus? Is this the circus? Are we there yet?” I’ve never seen her so excited about something! When we arrived we walked around a checked out the Center a little bit. I was pretty pumped to see Homemade Ice Cream & Pie Kitchen vendors, though I opted out of a $6 ice cream cone. Ouch. We wanted to get Ella a souvenier, but the last thing we need in our house is another stuffed animal, so we bought her a cute t-shirt. We found our seats, which were much better than I expected them to be. We were pretty close to the floor and had a great view…though I don’t think that arena has a bad view. When the circus finally began I thought Ella was going to lose it. I’ve never, ever seen her so excited. She kept clapping her hands and yelling “whooooo!!!!” Ronnie and I were cracking up watching her. It was so much fun to see her so excited! She kept leaning over and giving us hugs, saying “I love you Mommy! I love you Daddy!” Then she would say “Where are the elephants? Where are the tigers? Are the animals coming out now?”
The show was amazing. Ronnie and I were as mesmerized as Ella. During the intermission I took Ella for a potty break then let her pick out a snack. I thought she would go for popcorn…she loves popcorn, but the child sitting in front of us was eating a snowcone so she had her heart set on one. So she ended up with a $10 snowcone. But, it was in a really cool elephant souvenir bowl. After intermission the tigers came out. That part was really cool. Then nine elephants came out and they were awesome. I think that was probably Ella’s favorite.
After the circus ended we were walking back to the car and Ronnie asked Ella what her favorite part was. Without hesitation she said, “My favorite part was when the elephant pooped!!” Of course a three yar old's favorite part of the circus would have to involve poop!! Apparently one of the elephants dropped a bomb during their routine. I missed that, but it didn’t get past Ella! Ronnie saw it too, and didn’t know how I could have missed it. I sure hate that I did. ;)
We had a blast at the circus. It was so fun to see Ella so excited! Since it was the first circus for all of us, we were all pretty excited! It was great to have some time with our big girl and hopefully it made her feel pretty special. We certainly feel pretty special to be blessed with such a sweet, energetic and happy daughter!
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