Last night in Israel

Our last touch of Israel is Eilat on the Red Sea (a typo from the distant past converted the beautiful deep blue of the Sea of Reed to the crimson finger of water that does glow that color at sunset).

It is Purim, the Jewish Halloween, and even this secular tourist town is resplendent with bejeweled Queen Esters from 2 years old to young adult living out the fantasy of inverting the course of history with only wit and beauty.

Later tonight, it is our time to cross Sinai to Cairo. I will miss Israel.

My meeting with Professor Aaron Polliack in Herzliya Pituah yesterday about my CLL was very worthwhile, and I promise to post on what is relevant for me and for others. He is enthusiastic about some pretty exciting CLL research being done here. Let me just foreshadow by saying that things look good.

But I am staying away from the Internet for the most part, so more later

Israel just keeps getting better

Exhausted and overjoyed in Israel. Healing mud baths and floating at the Dead Sea. Cable cars to the top of the fortress Masada and a visit to the world's oldest synagogue.

Spectacular tour under the what is the left in the 8th wonder of the ancient world, a part of the support for the second Temple, namely the Western Wall, and finally the best, a quiet day spent with my donor in his small town, Bet Shemesh. I saw his Yeshiva where he studies in a method hundreds of years old, and had a wonderful vegan lunch at his apartment with our wives.

I am so lucky to have such a wonderful person as my donor.

Much too tired to write more, but aching to share stories and maybe some wisdom I have learned on the way

Shabbos Dinner

What an amazing evening at the home of my donor's parents. 11 of the 12 children were at the table for Sabbath dinner, with the older kids taking care of the younger ones. Not tranquil or quiet, but full of love and wisdom.

Wonderful home cooked meal with even the challah being vegan. I can't imagine the work of preparing food for 12 people every day.

The Torah portion was on making a donation. Yaakov, my 24 year old donor, did a wonderful and pertinent drash (interpretation) on the spirit behind giving.

After dinner we walked for miles back to our hotel through car free streets- no-one drives which means no taxis) in the orthodox neighborhoods on Shabbos. Hassids in their fur hats and long black or gold striped coats were an organic part of the active street life. Multiple generations dressed in their Sabbath finery talking in the middle of what on any other day would be a traffic filled road.

Clearly family life is good here. Social and spiritual concerns seem pre-eminent, at least on Saturdays.

No pictures taken. It's Sabbath

I am so blessed to have such a mench as my donor.

Said prayers for you all at the Wall earlier today.

The Western Wall

Yaakov, Nomee, and me at the Western Wall

Airport Blues

In Vienna for over 7 hours, waiting for our plane to Tel Aviv. We will have to clear some combo of security/customs/passport control for a third time, and we haven't even got to Ben Gurion Airport where I understand they really give you the once over. And I thought the EU enjoy open borders, the friendly exchange of citizens to form a greater union, sans frontiers.

I better postpone my next CT scan-I have already had my annual dose of radiation.

Really, we are just changing planes, and yet we need to go through all these searches. Seems silly, but I guess it good for job creation. Security and government work are two of the few job growth industries, and this is both.

We caught an earlier flight out of the drab colorless efficiency of Frankfurt so we could spend our wait time in cheerier Vienna with Mozart candies and Klimt fashions and free Internet.

Jet lag is starting to swamp me, so I will quit while still coherent. Hard to be literate when you've been on the go for about 20 hours across 9 time zones. Hard to complain when sitting in such a pleasant lounge.

Platelets good enough for a road trip

I am very happy to report that my platelets today, a full 17 days after my last IVIG, were a very healthy 216,000, down from 308,000 a week earlier.

This means that surely I needs the IVIG, or the fall would continue. But how low would it go? Who knows? I don't plan to find out.

But more importantly, it is pretty safe for me to travel to Israel and I should be safe for at least a few weeks from a platelet point of view. To add a margin of safety, I am getting a higher dose of IVIG to safeguard my journey.

The rest of the CBC was WNL though my HGB dropped a bit from 14.6 to 13.7. I won't worry about that unless it looks like it's the start of a trend.

The IVIG seems to be doing a better job post transplant and post splenectomy. My platelets have been much more responsive to the protein coating from the immunoglobulins since my scavenging spleen was removed more than a year before my transplant.

I will gingerly try to stretch out the infusions to 3 weeks when I return. I could live with that non remitting life style for a long long time. And I mean that literally.

We leave for Israel tomorrow afternoon. Patty and I are so excited. We are having Sabbath dinner with my donor and his 11 younger siblings.

I hope to see the details of my BMB before I take off and will share the news here.