the origins of my name

Last Monday I took my two girls and their friend J stargazing. Not just any ordinary let's go look at the stars fomr of stargazing, specifically we went aurora watching. We were not disappointed. It wasn't the all out spectacular stuff you see from the far north, but us being at 49° north it was pretty awesome.
We had been out a couple hours and had only seen an iridium flare, a couple shooting stars, the milkyway in all its absolute glory, and I was ready to head out.
 We decided to head down the freeway a little more to see if there were another point just as dark and easy to get to as the one we were at. Get in the truck, buckle up, get on the freeway and Bekah says "I'm not feeling real good". Had get lay her seat back...and she was out. Passed out. And I'm going 75mph with no place to safely stop. Big sis kept an eye on her while I looked for a stop. Finally got to an exit and pulled off just as she wakes up. I told her it was great timing since we were spotted in front of a fire station.
It was only 3 minutes but when you aren't in a position to help it might as well have been 30 minutes.
We head towards home and got close to the first exit we had been at when I happened to glance out my window. The sky was looking lighter. I asked the kids if it looked lighter to them, took the exit and pulled over in time to see the whole northern sky light up. As much as I loved what I was seeing what I truly enjoyed though was seeing and hearing the excitement from the kids. seeing auroras the first time is almost a spiritual experience.

In other news... I saw the oncologist Wednesday. Instead of things being clearer they are more confusing.
Labs are essentially unchanged, still elevated. He did screening for the JAK2 gene and I am negative. He also checked erythropoetin(EPO). That's the hormone released by the kidneys that regulates red cell production in your bone marrow. If it's low it means it's primary polycythemia, if it's high is secondary. Range is 3-20 or 23, something like that. I'm a 9. Normal. That gives us more questions than answers.
Liver still enlarged, spleen also now slightly enlarged. In about an hour I am going in for a full abdominal ultrasound. They will be checking out live and spleen for sure, as well as everything else. I'm not allowed to eat before. Guess they plan on looking at my stomach also.
So, as of right now game plan is to wait and see what this test and more labs site. No chemo yet, no blood letting. He did say goal is to get my hematocrit down to 40, currently it's bouncing around between 48 & 58. The mystery continues.