the start

  This is my first try at blogging. I really don't know what I'm doing,but I'll wing it.
Some background is in order I guess. I have been married for 41 years to my best friend. We met when I was just 15 and he 16 and have been together ever since. We have two wonderful sons and two grandsons. Life was great..plans for retirement were to have fun and visit the grandkids. Then it happened, a chance blood test showing my husband to be very anemic..this led to more doctors visits and tests. He underwent 3 bone marrow biopsies before one doctor finally made a diagnosis, it was myelofibrosis, a bone marrow disease similar to leukemia. We were devastated ,he was feeling good and seemed well but for the blood counts,so how could he be so sick? He has been having shots of procrit for almost a year now and has reached the maximum dose. He has also had 5 blood transfusions in that time  and now he needs to go to the next level of treatment...chemotherapy. This will not cure him,it is a stop gap measure to try and put off the ultimate treatment...a bone marrow transplant. We are lucky, his brother is a match and is willing to donate marrow but his age makes the risks higher. We are told the odds of surviving the transplant process is 30% at best so the docs are trying to keep him relatively healthy as long as possible.
  Tomorrow he starts chemo, we have no idea how he will react to it,if he will suffer bad side effects or not. If it will even help or not. I am scared for him.....and for me.I start cleaning when I'm nervous, the house should be spotless pretty soon. Then I will start sewing things, that's something else I do to try and relax...doesn't always work,but at least something useful gets made.
 I hope this next week goes well and trying to stay positive.