Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2011 – Day 29: Today is a wonderful day! Today, we had our last doctor appointment at Vanderbilt for the year, and my last (~ninth) PET scan of the year. Tomorrow we start packing our things to return to our home in Knoxville. More importantly, we get to tell the GPS that GO HOME takes us back to Knoxville!
leaving vanderbilt for the last time
We are really excited about coming home to Knoxville, and also very nervous. There were a lot of ‘rules’ we learned going into the stem cell transplant — but there are not so many rules to follow coming out of transplant. There are plenty of good ideas I’m sure, but we don’t know that we know all of them, which makes it hard to know we are doing our best to take care of my health.
Jacqui: Do you know what this is?! This is Andrew's and my 'walking papers'!!! 
We’re very thankful for the wonderful support system we’ve had here in Nashville. Jacqui’s parents have been beyond amazing! We’re also excited to be coming home to Knoxville, and we look forward to reconnecting with our support system there. It has been wonderful to get letters and cards from everyone – they truly brighten both mine and Jacqui’s days and dark nights. It makes both of us so happy to read your cards, messages, and emails, even though I am not always up to responding at the time – or capable of remembering afterwards! [it's the chemo brain, you know.]
We got to say our goodbyes to many of our newfound friends today, including the nurses and the doctors at Vanderbilt. Carol (one of the brightest and dearest nurses) had the best words for us as we left:
“Get out of here and go live your lives!”
Yay!