January 17th, 2005

First, thanks for all of the prayers. I have never experienced the power of prayer like I have during this leukemia saga. I had often read how God works through the prayers of His people, now I know a little better first hand what that means.

Sorry I haven’t written in a while. As they say, no news is good news. My CBC (complete blood count) tests have been great. All of the blood components are normal and holding steady. Looking at the last test results would make one think there was no problem at all.

I am going in this week to start testing for the second stage of response to the Gleevec medicine. It is called the Cytogenetic response. They will start monitoring me to see if the percentage of leukemic cells is going down compared to the regular white cell count. The testing will continue until either they cannot find leukemic cells or until the ratio doesn’t change anymore. This phase of testing could last 6-9 months. I’ll let ya’ll know what the test is like and how I’m doing.