Friday, July 22, 2011

Save a life! Become a bone marrow donor!

I just wanted to pass this along... a woman that frequents the message boards at The Bump has a little girl just a week older than Abby... and already needs a bone marrow transplant. She has a rare form of marrow failure called "Congenital (from birth) Amegakaryocytic (lack of megakaryocytes or large cell-making cells) Thrombocytopenia (without platelets)" (I copied that from her blog because I figured I'd screw it up trying to remember the whole name myself!) It is so rare that there are only about 100 known cases in the world. And the only cure and hope for this sweet girl is a complete bone marrow transplant. Her docs think they have found her a match, but others continue to wait for theirs.  There is info on the donor process and links to the organization DKMS on her blog. Just click on the "pray for Kate" button on the left side of this page.

Be the match! And if you are pregnant, look into cord blood donation as well!

ps... her story's gone global... she's even on perez's blog and Celine Dion's website!
linked from fitperez.com
http://fitperez.com/2011-07-21-celine-dion-urges-fans-to-help-little-girl-with-bone-marrow-failure

Celine Dion Urges Fans To Help Little Girl With Bone Marrow Failure

Filed Under: Sad Music Minute Celine Dion celine-dion-urges-fans-to-help-baby-kate.jpg
Celine needs your help.
Lindsey Boggan struggled for years to become pregnant. And just ten months after giving birth to her little girl, Kate, the baby is now struggling for her life with a rare form of bone marrow failure.
Lindsey desperately wrote on her blog asking for help.
Struggling with fertility issues herself, singer Celine Dion knew she needed to do something when she heard the story of Lindsey and Kate.
She is urging her fans to register with DKMS in the hopes of becoming a hero and saving a 10-month-old who is struggling to survive.
DKMS is the world's largest bone marrow donor center that is urging everyone nationwide to sign up for a registration kit that will help them find a bone marrow match for Kate.
Click here to sign up and hopefully become a bone marrow donor for Kate or for the thousands of people who need your help.
[Image via WENN.]

It's a bittersweet symphony, this life...

My sweet cat of twelve years, TayTay passed on this morning. She lived with my parents, and unfortunately I haven't been able to see her since they moved to a different town earlier this year. That's probably a good thing though, since it seems she started deteriorating around that time. We didn't have a definitive diagnosis, but we think it was some type of cancer that ended up in her brain. The important thing is that she isn't suffering anymore, and she's in heaven playing with her sister Tweets, who passed a few months ago.

Well, I guess I'll update you on our life since once again, it's been forever! lol Abby continues to grow like a weed... She's now 28.4 lbs, which we know because they had to weigh her in the ER the other night. Poor Boo has had an awful viral infection (most likely roseola infantum) all week and still isn't feeling her best... evidenced by the fact she is currently napping and has been for FOUR hours!!!

She hasn't started walking quite yet, at least I'm not counting it as such. On occasion, she will take a few steps on her own but that's about it. It's just a confidence issue at this point...as soon as she feels she can do it on her own, she'll be off and running! She has stood up without pulling up one time, and that was out in the yard, the last time she played out there before getting sick (and before this awful heat wave!) I guess she just has too much to pull up on in the house, because I haven't seen her attempt it in here! lol

Her vocabulary is already growing too... The other day, she got all kinds of excited when I brought out her tray of spaghetti and she squealed, "sketti!" She can also say Abby, yeah, and "tee-tee", which for some odd reason, is her name for Elmo. I kinda wonder if she thinks Elmo is a puppy, because I've heard her call our friends' Great Dane the same thing on occasion... lmao We have been also working with her on sharing... we play this little game where whenever she has a sippy cup, we ask her if she'll share with us. She hands us the cup, we pretend to take a drink (since it's usually filled with formula... yuck!) hand it back to her and say thank you! She thinks this is hilarious...

Not much new going on with me and D... He got a 1990 Harley for Father's Day (and his b-day, anniversary, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Rosh Hashanah, and Canada Day... for the next five years... lol) and has been out riding a lot. I've been pretty unsuccessful with my job search so far, but thus is the job market these days. I'm not too sad about that though... I think it's gonna be really rough on me to put Abby in daycare. Plus I've been dealing with more flare ups of my fibromyalgia and they literally suck the life force out of me! I have found that taking a magnesium supplement has really helped though! I was having awful pain and nerve twitches at night when trying to fall asleep... since starting the magnesium, I haven't had much of a problem with that!

I leave with these pictures of cuteness...