Sat - Apr 21

Luckily Hillary felt better today than she did yesterday morning as there were big plans for her birthday (well, big for being in a hospital room all day). Tom and Margie had some balloons delivered to her room this morning and we had some ice cream to celebrate Hill's b-day and she opened some presents in the late morning. The nurses put up some birthday signs around the room when we were off on a walk and later came in and sang "Happy Birthday" to Hillary which was great. Margie made some friends as she passed out ice cream to some of the nurses and others on our floor. Hillary got a chance to read the last few days of the blog and all of the comments - she loves reading everything. We're keeping it pretty mellow tonight as Hillary has been a little tired this afternoon/evening - we'll probably watch Anchorman, which neither of us has seen, then hit the sack early.
I wanted to let everyone know that with Hillary responding well to the chemo, and if she keeps doing well with her cells growing back, the Dr's said she could possibly be discharged in about 2 weeks, which would be about 1 month since we got to Stanford. After that there would still be a number of things that would happen as they would do another bone marrow biopsy to see how the cells are doing, and there would be more chemo - probably for several months (maybe even three times a week for 4 months), but this would be as an out-patient. Obviously this is all dependent on Hillary continuing to do well, but it's great that they are talking about the next steps - and Hillary being able to go home in the near future.
I wanted to thank everyone for all of the comments on the blog, the gifts Hillary has received, all of the cards, the text messages and the voice mails. She loves hearing from everyone - even if she can't get back to everyone. They all put a smile on her face.