June 19th, 2006

God has been very gracious to me. Even in this huge medical whirlwind I have been feeling pretty well. It’s been 10 days since I’ve had to get a red blood transfusion. I was getting them evey 2-3 days at first. I’ve had some platelets, but the hemoglobin and hematocrit counts (red blood cells) are holding their own. The white count has been fluctuating and my neutrophils (white cells that fight off infections) keep going up and down.

My personal goal was to have my neutrophil count reach 500 before the local strawberries are gone because I love fresh strawberries. It looks like that is improbable so I’ll have to wait until next year, Lord willing. Oh well, Barbara’s mom made me the best strawberry rhubarb pie so I could get my strawberry fix.

OHSU is waiting for the results of my high resolution testing for a donor. Once they receive the results the doctor will be able to do a rapid search for possible donors in all of the worldwide registries. If there are possible matches to me those matches (up to 4-5 at a time) will be high resolution tested to see if they are an exact match. That should take 4-6 weeks.

By the time a perfect match is selected, I hope the study drug has me in total remission so that I can receive a more mild treatment to prepare me for the transplant. At the same time of my treatment the donor will be conditioned for the transplant. On the day the stem cells are taken from the donor the stem cells will be air shipped and transfused into me.

If you want more information, look at this website: www.ArtsDonorInfo.blogspot.com.

Please continue to pray for me. There are a lot of hurdles involved in this process. It is my hope that God’s will is to help me over them. Whatever happens, I am praying for God’s will to be done.