June 30th, 2006: Happy July 4th to all! Dad and I took this photo this morning of Mom's wonderful team of doctors! The people surrounding Mom are members of the Bone Marrow Tranplant team at Methodist Hosptal. Thanks to their expertise and professional care the transplant process has been smooth sailing. In case you are wondering, the wand in Mother's hand was given to her by a terrific nurse so that each morning she could hold court with the medical team. Sally here...... Soon I will become an outpatient and enter another phase of this journey with additional members of the outstanding Methodist team. Onward!

June 28 Comfort

Back in February during my 1st round of chemo, Susan brought me a teddy bear. We named it Comfort and when ever I had trouble sleeping Comfort helped out. Recently I apologized to a nurse late one night that this grandmother needed Comfort. She smiled and said, "You are never too old for a teddy bear". So here I am surrounded by on the left Comfort, Gertrude the cow, and mother of Comfort tied with balloons.
In my right hand is Godiva chocolate.

The medical team says everything continues on schedule so

Onward....... SS

June 27

Red Hat Ladies Unite

Wonderful friends at HUD sent me red hat pajamas. Bob located my red hat at home. This morning I greeted the medical team at Methodist as a representative of Austin Red Hat ladies. There followed a discussion about how special red hat ladies are.

With such wonderful encouragement from family and friends we stay in a positive mode. This is important as my strong willed cells discuss with the obviously strong willed donor cells how to get along.

Onward......

SS

June 26

Imagine my surprise when a young Methodist volunteer appeared at the door and said may I do your portrait. What fun. Imagine my surprise when the portrait looks 37 the age of my female donor. Shelly (Minggian) Xie is a 17 year old senior at Bellaire High School with an art hobby. She plans to attend Harvard and become a physician like both her parents. She speaks fluent Chinese, Japanese and English. Wow. We had a delightful visit.

I am so very grateful for family, friends, the wonderful Methodist team, and people like Shelly that make my daily waiting game just that a waiting game. Engraftment of the donor cells takes about 10 to 20 days, and I am on day 12 without complications.

Onward......... SS

June 23

Yesterday about 2:00 when I felt less than 100% Bob offered to get Starbucks. One hour later when he still had not returned from what should be a 15 minute trip downstairs I was hosting my own pity party. Then he burst into the room smiling, " I have a surprise for you. Chelsea Smith is here with the Harbor Light Choir and they are coming to sing for you."

WOW I sang with them mask and all. The choir is made up of formerly homeless men from the Salvation Army Men's shelter. They sing from the heart in perfect harmony. The pity party lost out to their signature song "Joy in the Morning". This morning I still felt like I was singing and swaying to their fantastic music. Chelsea is Methodist Community Development Coordinator. She the beautiful young daughter of long time friends Fred and Charmaine Smith Salvation Army Shelter Directors

Onward..........

June 22. THE VISIT: Lifelong friends, Carolyn and Marsha, from Hunt, TX along with newer friends (of 24 years) Judy, Jane and Deborah came for a delightful visit yesterday. We all rendevous at Camp Waldemar Women's Week annually. Since I must wear a mask while outside the room, I will be a horse this year in the WWW production! The transplant process remains on schedule and the medical team seems very pleased with my progress. I am also pleased! Onward......SS

Sally says

Here comes Angie one of the fantastic nurses here at Methodist with her second load of stuff for today. I had to capture what looks to be a sales ad for drugs. That's OK because they do work and everything is on schedule. The medical team meets daily and determines the cocktail mix. They discuss what is what and the why with me. Then I promptly forget.

Friends and family out side of Houston you may have heard about the terrible flooding in Houston. So far the Medical Center and our part of town have been spared. Our rain induced boat party was five years ago.

Onward....

SS

June 19

Sally says,

Just before mother and Mark drove back to Beaumont yesterday Bob took this picture. As all can see Mother and daughter are fine. The other picture of me with the funny air filter mask is my new attire when I leave the room. Air in the room is filtered. I am advised that the mask is necessary even after I go home when I go outside. This makes for interesting breathing while on the treadmill, and for future interesting conversation when I walk in our neighborhood.

Onward........

Sally says
Family and friends thank you so very much for your cards, calls, and mail. Your thoughtfulness is deeply appreciated. Everything remains on schedule with no complications. The medical team informed me today that I make them look bad because, no matter what, I am on the treadmill daily for at least 45 minutes. I thanked them for making it possible for me to feel good enough to use the treadmill. We had a good laugh.

Today Mark drove over from Beaumont with my mother to celebrate Father's Day with his dad and have a very pleasant Sunday afternoon here at Methodist. Unfortunately the camera batteries went out just after one picture. See it with tomorrow's report.

onward.......

Sally says,

Day plus two from transplant. No energy whatsoever, yet so far so good. Nothing special to write. I have completed the Anderson Cooper book "Dispaches from the Edge". It's a good read.
SS

Thursday, June 15th: Susan here, As you can see, Mom looks GREAT! We are back among the living after a tough day yesterday. If you look closely you can see she is reading Anderson Cooper's book, "Dispatches from the Edge". We bring you: Sally Shipman's, "Dispatches from the Bed"!

Sally says: The transplant yesterday was quite the culmination of a long adventure. The only problem was 12 hours earlier all the drugs of the preceeding 4 days went to war in me. More drugs to combat the nausea caused me to fly around the room. By midnight all was well and today is a great day. I highly recommend Anderson's Coopers "Dispatches from the Edge."

TRANSPLANT DAY, Wednesday, June 14th: Susan here, Transplant occurred at 11:00am this morning , lasted about 15 minutes and went fine. Mom had a bumpy night and morning here, but she is sleeping comfortably now. We will write later today when she is awake. Thank you all for your prayers, positive thoughts, kind words, cards and e-mails! It means a lot.

TUESDAY JUNE 13th: Moving on towards tomorrow's transplant. All the physicians opine that the transplant is actually anticlimatic, takes about 20 minutes and is the equivalent to a blood transfusion. Anticlimatic?!? It is a new beginning, a new chapter and a new road forward! Onward!

June 12
Sally says
From others who have experienced transplant I have learned that there is status in your personal pole and the number of lines. I now have five bags on the pole. This is a real cocktail. Everything is on schedule and going well.
Your messages, prayers and positive thoughts are so appreciated. Onward...........
Thank you
SS

Sunday, June 11th: Susan here. Hi everyone, Mom had a very nice weekend with a lot of company from good friends and family. Son Mark was over Friday night and I resumed at the hospital Saturday morning while Dad, Mark, Sarah, Sergio and Baby Jack were in Glen Rose, TX helping celebrate Grandmother Shipman's 91st birthday!! Saturday evening we had a party with "the gang", aka Dinah, Andrea and Carolyn. Mom was thrilled and as you can see, they put together a very nice "happy hour" and had fun catching up. This morning, Carol, Ken and Derek had a very nice visit as well. As you can see, Mom continues with her positive spirit! We are trying to "live it up" a little, pre-transplant. We're still on for the transplant Wednesday, so please keep the prayers and positive vibes coming - it means a lot to all of us! Hope everyone had a very nice weekend.

MOM SAYS: As you can tell, things are really going ok, on schedule and now almost routine. Drugs, poke, countdown we are at T minus 3.....Onward....SS

Friday, June 9th aka Day 2: Settling in, paper arrived early this morning, brewed coffee in my coffee pot, what better way to start the day than coffee and a newspaper. Chemo has begun, meaning we are on our way. More tomorrow.

Thursday, June 8, was Transplant Day One in Methodist Hospital for us ( Sally-Bob-Susan). Checked in at 9:00AM, set up the room for a month's stay with pictures, books, ipod, walkman radio, computer, tel. answering machine, coffee pot, clothes, food (hosp. food not good), clothes and made arrangements for early AM delivery of newspaper. Yes, we get to haul all this back home in a month.

Doctor Davies, head of ICU, came by and installed a port in Sally's chest, twice. Left side of chest not receptive (scar tissue from the catheter installed In February?).

The real fun began at 3:00 with a trip to Radiation Therapy to do full body radiation as the first step in preparation for the transplant next week. The doc, Dr. Teh had earlier provided a good explanation of the full-body radiation procedure and its effects on the body.

Around 4:30, while Sally was undergoing the radiation (and playing the Dixie Chicks new album) I checked out for the day and Susan checked in for the evening shift.

At 7:00 this morning, Friday, I found Sally ( the one that you know) down the hall on the treadmill smiling a big smile, declaring she had a really good night's sleep. She Is Amazing.

Our good friends, the nurses of the Methodist Hospital Cell and Gene Therapy Unit, are all still there and it literally felt like a family reunion to see them all again. Stay tuned.

Bob

June 4, 2006

Tomorrow starts the paper work and test prior to "moving in" to Methodist on Thursday for the transplant process. Today I recalled at this point last year training for the San Francisco Marathon. Susan and I were doing 18 and 23 miles on Sunday mornings. So this morning I put on my San Francisco Marathon t-shirt and did the Rice/Herman Park run. It is only 1/3 of last year's effort, but I could still experience the sweat and Houston humidity. My Marathon this summer (the transplant) will at least be an air conditioned environment.

In any race a cheering section really makes a big difference. Please know in advance that I am very grateful to family and friends for cards (to our home address) and email sallyshipman@hotmail.com . Your cheers mean a lot. Thank you and onward............ SS