Spitsix wrote: Day 0 was yesterday. Now she has two birthdays!
That is wonderful news. Please let us Gainesville folks if there is anything we can do for you guys. I also emailed you to see if I could take you out for a drink (coffee, beer, wine, hard stuff, whatever you like). Let me know!
Great news!!!
In reply to Spitsix:
Congratulations! If you give me contact information and a list of you and your wife's favorite foods, I can do my best to whip something up. At some point you will probably want a break from restaurant food.
She is being released from Shands today! We will be hitting your sugusted restaurants for the next 2 months while she is in the local "halfway house"
GREAT NEWS!!!
Osterkraut wrote: Don't forget about Newberry's Backyard BBQ, and the original Sonny's BBQ is in Gainesville, too! Copper Monkey makes a pretty good hamburger, Falafel King has damn good "middle eastern" food. You should probably hit up The Swamp, just because, well, it's The Swamp. Consider Calico Jack's or Mother's for wings. I think it's closed now, but the oldest restaurant in Gainesville is Louis' Lunch, a little east of Main in a not-great part of town. Worth if for the little slice of history alone (they have a semi-legitimate claim to inventing the hamburger), and a damn good burger.
it was damn good 30+ yrs ago when I lived there ... worked for a surveying firm that was just around the corner
Fantastic. She'll feel a lot better just not being in there. Good luck!!
That is great news.
Spitsix wrote: She is being released from Shands today! We will be hitting your sugusted restaurants for the next 2 months while she is in the local "halfway house"
Still interested in buying you a round of your favorite libations. Send me a PM if you're interested. Or...if you're really bored, come help me wrench on my Challenge project!! 
We brought Sue home today!!!!! 3 months to the day from her entry into Shands.
The Bone Marrow transplant went well for both her and her brother Richard. The technology is amazing. He was given drugs to get his body to produce more T cells then usual and on “collection day” they were harvested by having an IV in each arm. His blood was circulated thru a machine that collected the T cells and then his blood was put back into his other arm. When Richard came to see her after the transplant, Sue pulled out a fake cigar like Richard smokes and she told him that she had a sudden urge to light one up! There are some flu like symptoms like achy bones, but he drove back to Ohio the day after the transplant.
Out of the hospital and into Hope Lodge in 3 weeks was a good sign but she was experiencing a lot of nausea. All of the transplant numbers were good at most of her visits, but the nausea never fully went away. The staff at Shands were fantastic, they kept changing things up looking for the right combination of drugs. A gut biopsy discovered that she had Guest (her Donor’s T cells) vs Host (her T cells) (GVH) that commonly shows up as a slight rash on the arm showed up in her stomach. You want some GVH because it shows that the cells are mixing it up, but it is preferred to be out in the open were you can see it instead of inside your stomach. Things moved quickly once that was under control.
Thank you guys for the restaurant suggestions. We did try most of them, but the meals we usually short and only a small portion eaten. Having a 9:00 pm curfew also limited our time out so most nights we just hunkered down at the lodge.
Hope Lodge was a place were no matter how crappy you were feeling, you put on the brave face because there were others that had it a lot tougher then you. I talked cars with several patients and care givers. Getting them to a happier place even for a few minutes was a relief. There are 3 TV viewing rooms that were always empty when I watched the early F1 races. Amazingly strong people, but there were days that that everyone (including us) needed a hand.
So ends this portion of the journey. Thanks to everyone who thought a good thought or prayer, our fantastic Doctors, PAs, hospital staff and Sue’s unstoppable attitude, we are now cancer free.
Once we get settled in again at home I’m coming down for that beer!
Cool, thanks for the update. Hope to see you at an event soon.
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