Thursday, January 15th, 2009 - 12:30 PM

Today is the first day we'll be conducting an integrated sim with the Japanese simulator for the HTV mission. I've been preparing for this sim for about a year now and am totally living on adrenaline. As the adrenaline slowly wears off, I plan to transition to caffeine. The ten-hour sim doesn't start until 3:00, but I want to have plenty of time to get ready, to mentally prepare for a long night of what are sure to be some very stressful situations. My cell phone rings; an unknown number. It's a representative from the National Marrow Donor Program. They think they've found a match and would like me to come in for further testing. I agree, set up an appointment to go to the blood bank, and hang up. Added to the stress of the upcoming simulation, it feels like too much to process right now. I file it away for later, remembering the last two times I got this call and how it turned out to be nothing. Probably won't be anything this time either.