Return of the hair

Heidi and Robin

The hair is growing!  You can't tell in the photo at the left.  You can't actually tell with the naked eye.  Now that I think about it, they are still too short to be detectable with an electron microscope nuclear resonance hair detector.  But Heidi says her hair is coming back.  So it's coming back.

hammerin' away

There is some bad news associated with hair growth.  During the meeting this morning with her medical team, Heidi mentioned that she had to resume plucking her eyebrows.  She was so excited, until a hush fell over the room.  Nurse Diane shook her head and said in her best 1st-Grade Teacher voice, "Heidi, you can't pluck hair out.  The risk of folliclitus is too great."  The wave of excitement washed out of her face like it went through the heavy duty cycle of a Sears side-by-side top loading washer.  Not that it made any difference.  The aestheticially-inclined among you can rest assured that Heidi doesn't really follow the rules.

The long-awaited previously-discussed Tacrolimus taper has started. . .  this coming weekend.  The anti-rejection drug, formerly called FK506 (which always makes me think of ED209 from Robocop), will be reduced over the next 5 months.  She was taking 2.5 mg/day last week, but will be reducing 0.5 mg/day every month.  By September she should be off it completely.  The PA said GvH could arise at this point, but probably wouldn't in Heidi because she hasn't shown any symptoms yet. 

Did everybody notice Day 50 came and went.  We're past halfway.  If we were hiking up a mountain we'd already be on the way down.  And everybody knows walking down is easier than hiking up.  If we were playing a football game, we'd already be past the halftime show (which nobody likes) and the halftime commentators back in the studio (which nobody likes).  We'd be riding the high from the coach's locker room Gipper speech.  If this were a hockey game . . . damn hockey and their 3 period-games.  That's why hockey will never be popular in this country; hockey analogies just don't work.