Stephen Seahawking

Prepare a beverage and gather round, children, there's a doin's a transpirin'. In order of actual happenstance:

1) I am in complete remission of my aggressive lymphoma. The italics are because all of my existing skin issues, which are themselves lymphoma-related, are still doin' they thang. That'll pass in time with the science-magic that is the stem cell transplant, which brings us to my next point of order:

2) I leave for Seattle on the 29th of January, not for a consultation, but for my first transplant - a dose of my own stable stem cells. After all of the tests, harvesting (of stem cells - for me, by me), and a fun dose of preparative chemotherapy (and radiation, I think that's the number 5 combo), I will be getting the actual transplant sometime around the middle of March.

But wait! There's more!

3) The SCCA, the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, has intimated to me that they wish to proceed as quickly as possible with the second transplant, so, assuming an acceptable donor has been found, I'll be getting an unrelated donor transplant in mid-late May. Then, they want me to stick around after my nominal recovery period for 100 days of observation, which means that I'll be getting back to Saskatoon, oh, say about September.

I'll be an outpatient for a surprisingly large amount of my time down there, so I can indeed take visitors, and to an extent, I will have total autonomy, so long as I don't lick surfaces, hover in the personal space regions of others, or visit venues verging on violently packed with vitality (crowds are bad).

I shall endeavour to post frequent missives, dispatches, short notes, long-winded rambles, and general updates, so keep your eyes peeled and refresh the page from time to time. You never know what's going to pop up here.