I love how she wears matching camo shorts just to make me happy

Since we had to post-pone our May 23, 2009 wedding, we decided to have a family get together anyways that day, hence our “I Do…” and “I Do Too!” T-shirts.

Third time’s the charm??!! Matt’s finally home from his successful bone marrow transplant, and we’re ready to finally say our I do’s! After 2 unsuccessful tries at this wedding planning stuff, this time we’re ready to go — and hopefully it’ll be FREEEE!! We’re entering a $100,000 wedding give-away on Crate and Barrel’s website — please please please please vote for us!! Just follow a few easy steps:

1. click on the link below
2. make sure you see our happy smiling faces :), click on VOTE
3. register on the site with your email address
4. they will email you with a confirmation, so check your email,
5. click on the link in your email and hit VOTE again!
6. Log Out on Crate & Barrel if someone else is going to vote on the same computer

Easy peazy! Takes only a minute, we promise!! Don’t forget to confirm your email address or your vote won’t count!

The contest started on 2/1 so we’re a little behind, so please please please vote, and vote sooooon!! Please please please PASS THIS message to your family, friends, friends of friends, co-workers, anyone — we need all the help we can get!

LINK: http://www.ultimateweddingcontest.com/entries/33977

Thank you, thank you, thank you!! We’re sooooo excited to finally get married, but we’d be uber excited to do it for FREEE!!

Chloe and Matthew

Health Update: 165 days post transplant, painful headaches from spinal tap since 3/15/10

Viet Lam, Dr. Lam Do, James Nguyen, & Thierry Lu

This past Sunday, James Nguyen and Thierry Lu, from Team Matthew attended a dinner in Milpitas, CA to meet with Vietnamese leaders from the community and other cancer fighter/survivors.  They were able to meet Dr. Lam Do, who is very active with AADP (Asian American Donor Program). Dr Do’s son underwent a successful bone marrow transplant 8 years ago and is doing well. They also met with Viet Lam, who is a battling cancer herself. She is 37 years old and is a physician. Viet was diagnosed with advanced aggressive Large B-cell Lymphoma in May 2007. To read more about Viet Lam and her battle, please click HERE and HERE. If you have not registered to become a bone marrow donor please do so as there are MANY other people who are still searching for a match to survive.

My buddies & DEDICATED Team Matthew volunteers James and Thierry

Health Update: 151 days post transplant and I am doing alright. Since my last entry many things have occurred. I got my PICC line pulled out after many many months of reliable usage. I hit a milestone of “100″ days post transplant and since things were ging well i was able to go outside in public without wearing my face mask as well as go back to a normal diet…. that meant no more low bacterial diet and i could finally have that salad i have been craving for so long. I also had a few other items to eat that i have been craving as you can see from the pictures (not all in one day).

My niece and nephew, Madeline and Connor

I also traveled to San Jose, Ca to visit my sisters, cousins, nieces, nephews, and friends. I was also able to attend my friends wedding Diana and Truyen. I’ve known Diana since the 3rd grade, that’s over 20 years, wow. Also Diana and Truyen were a part of Team Matthew and helped out at many drives. The morning after their wedding they even showed up at a drive we were helping out at to bring a friend that was not a bone marrow donor yet…. Just amazing.

Monday I was back at City of Hope hospital having a spinal tap (or Lumbar puncture, LP) procedure done. This is part of a series of LP my dr decided to do since I have a high number of white blood cells in my spinal fluid. Dr says they are all normal cells bu does not know why I have an elevated amount. So the plan is to to test my spinal fluid every few weeks and give me a small does of methotrexate, a chemotherapy agent, just as an additional preventative treatment. So far each time I’ve had this procedure done the number of white blood cells have gotten lower and lower closer to normal. Today the procedure was little tougher than usual. It took the doctor almost 45 minutes to complete the procedure (normally 10 mins) because he was having a hard time getting the needle in due to the scar tissue my body produced from all the previous times. So he had to go in three different spots and boy was it painful. I was so exhausted afterwards from the stress and pain I fell asleep for 2 hours.

Getting transfusion of platelets to prevent excess bleeding before spinal tap

Everyday I wake up it is a blessing to still be breathig and being able to do normal everyday things such as walking outside and breathing the fresh air, eating fresh fruits/vegetables without worrying about getting sick, being around other people without warring a mask, etc. I know I am very fortunate to be in the condition I am now, and I am thankful for both my parents and my fiancé, Chloe, for being by my side everyday to take care of me for the past 2.5 years. Now I hope I will be well enough to return to school, have a professional career, and take care of them. Hopefully I will have good news about school to share with everyone in the near future. Thank you again everyone for your support and “Chuc mung nam moi”, “happy new years” (lunar new years). A couple of months ago I would have never imagined that I would be able to celebrate this withmy friends and family. Hopefully this will be a better year for all of us.

My Picc line pulled out next to a credit card