More Day 0

Paul called at about 7:30 last night to say that Evan was receiving the transplant. Alyssa (or Alissa) took a picture of Karl holding the bag of cells as they were delivered to Evan. That picture will certainly be worth a thousand words (and about 1/2 million dollars). Karl was able to give Evan 6.2 million stem cells yesterday, a nice cushion above the 5 million estimated as necessary. Now begins the process of those cells calling Evan's body home as he starts the long recovery period. After chemo, radiation and immune-suppressing drugs, he is ready to feel better. It's been a very long week for him any way you look at it.

On Monday evening, Paul's mother, Agnes, died. Even though she was 89 and in her words, "ready to go anytime now," none of us expected her death. It was a real shock to our family. And, of course, our immediate thoughts went to that hospital room in Minneapolis. Evan (and all of our kids) were very close to Grandma and Grandpa Ruesch, which made it difficult to even think about her funeral knowing that he won't be able to be there to say goodbye to Grandma.

I feel very fortunate to know that Alyssa, Karl and Evan all had each other to lean on this week. Evan, in fact, proved to be his normal strong self for me. You see, I couldn't reach Kit to tell him about Grandma. I called late Monday night. I called Tuesday morning and several times during the day. No answer. Late Tuesday afternoon, I asked Evan to try calling him to see if maybe Kit would answer his call. No luck. Finally Evan emailed Kit and told him to call home. Makes sense, I know. The funny part was (and yes, it was kind of funny) that when Evan and I had a devil of a time reaching Kit the previous weekend, Evan left a snotty (Kit's term) message about him never answering his phone. So, when Evan sent an email saying that we were all trying to reach him and that he should call home, Kit thought Evan was still ribbing him about the previous weekend. Kit, then, like the rest of us, was shocked to hear of Grandma's death. But he, like the rest of us, knew that Grandma was indeed ready to go.

We'll miss Agnes forever, but we all know that ever since the day Leonard died, she hoped she'd join him soon. We can't be sad for long when we know that she finally got her wish.