You Gotta Love Rest Weeks!

It was nice to have a rest week this week.  Nobody jabbing me for chemo, no blood or platelet transfusions, it was almost...normal.  I only had one check-in appointment with my oncologist, an appointment with an ENT doctor, and a bone marrow biopsy.  A very light medical week for me!  During the bone marrow biopsy, they removed a sample of bone marrow from my pelvis and measured the amount of myeloma cells inside.  We can compare the results to my last bone marrow biopsy to see if the myeloma cells are increasing or decreasing (hopefully, it's the latter).  We decided to do this procedure ahead of my visit to Boston the week of Oct 22nd where I'll be checking in with my doctor at Dana Farber hospital.  He is my "offensive coordinator" and Jen and I set up the game plan of my treatment with him and then execute that treatment plan in Orlando.

In a couple of non-medical notes:

- Due to a comment received last week, I updated the photo at the top of the blog.

- It was great to see my cousin Nicole, who was down from Massachussets, and her family at my brother's house yesterday.  They got a bit of a taste of Saturday in the South during college football season as the Gator game was on throughout our visit.

- The Gators played their typical close game against Vanderbilt, but squeaked out another (somewhat ugly) victory.  A fired up South Carolina team will be coming to The Swamp this coming weekend after losing to LSU.  I hope we don't let our new #3 ranking (AP Poll) or the fact that ESPN's Game Day will be broadcasting from Gainesville, get to our heads.  We're definitely over-rated at #3, but we can beat the Gamecocks if we play well.

-  A huge shout out to my friend Craig Powers who completed the legendary Ironman Hawaii triathlon yesterday. Not only did he swim 2.4 miles, then bike 112 miles, and then finish his day off by running a full 26.2 mile marathon...he did it all while battling 30-40 mile winds and heat & humidity on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Not bad for a Buckeye!  While racing, Craig wore the logo of the Multiple Myeloman Research Foundation and raised awareness for the fight to cure myeloma.  CP...you da man!!

-  See photo below for a pretty sweet bike that Craig saw a fellow competitor riding in Hawaii.  In a word...classy!

I hope everyone has a great week with their family and friends...more to come next week.