Here we go again??

As Yogi Berra used to say "It's like deja vu all over again". What am I talking about you are wondering? Nancy got a call from the hematologist today who she saw last week to help address what is going on with her bloodwork. The call today was from the nurse saying that her appointment was cancelled because she needs to have a bone marrow biopsy. The tests that were done last week all came out normal - meaning most of the easy solutions to her problem are out the door. Which means only the more complicated issues seem to remain - in particular leukemia or some other kind of deficiency with her bone marrow. As a matter of fact with her latest test her white blood cell count was down to 1.6. This is way lower that Patty was - even after the bone marrow transplant. So - we don't know exactly what it means other than we are starting down that same nasty path we went down 3 years ago. Ugh... I really don't want to have to go through this again. Obviously the situation is very different in the fact that Nancy is 77 years old and the options that were open to Patty are not necessarily open to Nancy. The biopsy is scheduled for next Wednesday afternoon at Littleton hospital. The hematologist doesn't expect the result to be available until sometime after the 4th of July weekend. Hopefully the biopsy won't mess Nancy up so much that she is incapacitated, as I would really like to get away with Zack for the 4th to the mountains. But obviously whatever happens with Nancy will have to take precedent over that. We escaped all the major rain and storms that hit the Denver metro area this afternoon. Just a tiny bit of rain, no lightning, no thunder. Hopefully we have the same luck tomorrow! Tomorrow morning Zack and I are going to get up very early and head out for another major hike. We are going to head West on I-70 to Idaho Springs. We will take the road up towards Mt. Evans but we will stop at the Summit Lake parking area as we will summit Gray Wolf via the Mount Spalding Traverse route. This will allow us to hit two peaks on the hike - Mount Spalding and Gray Wolf Mountain. It is also only 5 1/4 miles round trip. (I actually believe the mileage this time as I pulled the route information off of a respectable Internet site - SummitPost.org.) Total elevation gain for the hike is 1500 feet which though tough isn't too bad. We will max out at 13,842 on Mt Spalding. Gray Wolf Mountain is only 13,602. It should make for a good day as long as we move quickly enough and are off the peaks and down below tree line before noon. Well - I hope everyone has a great Friday night! Thanks and peace to all! - J.