Sunday, July 23rd, 2006

Since the last update I spent another four days in the hospital, July 14-17. As before, I had a low grade fever that lasted three days. The doctor took blood samples for blood cultures to see if anything bad was growing in me. Once they take culture samples they won’t let you go home until the cultures come back negative, which takes 3-4 days. All the cultures were negative, but there was something going on because after all of the IV antibiotics, the fever went away and I felt much better. During the hospital stay I started Neupogen shots. Neupogen is a man made protein that stimulates bone marrow to produce more white blood cells. Since the neupogen shots started, my white cell, neutrophil, red cell, hemoglobin, hematocrit and platelet counts are all going up. My blast cell count (immature cells caused by the leukemia) is going down slowly.

The reason for the Neupogen shots is that I’ve had severely low blood counts for over two months and that is a long time to be so low. Since my marrow is not responding naturally, it needed a boost. The doctors are concerned that I will contract some sort of infection that will be difficult to treat because I have been taking antibiotics for so long. By the way Neupogen is really expensive. The first three daily shots totaled $1320.00. YIKES. I’m so thankful for a $10 co-pay on prescriptions.

I had another bone marrow biopsy done last Wednesday to see if or how much the marrow is clearing from leukemia. I should hear the results of the tests by this Wednesday. The jury is still out on whether the study drug, AMN 107, is getting me to where I need to go. The biopsy results will help determine whether or not I will be switched from the study drug to another drug.

As far as finding a stem cell donor goes, the National Marrow Donor Registry has reported some possible matches for my HLA blood type. OHSU asked for current blood samples from 6 possible donor matches. Of the 6, some are unavailable now and others are not a perfect match. There is one donor sample left to come and the results of the remaining one should be known by the 24th. OHSU has asked for current blood samples for 4 more possible donors. Those samples should be here and processed in 2-3 weeks. Apparently the asking for 4-6 donors at a time to be currently sampled will continue until either they run out of possible donors or a perfect match is found. Hopefully there is a match and the process won’t take too long.

Barbara and I are daily searching for God’s will in all of this. So far I’ve had many opportunities to talk to other patients, nurses and doctors about God. It is interesting that even the ones who do not have a personal relationship with Christ, personally know of unexplainable recoveries, healings and circumstances. I can only trust that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing and God has someone else to help all come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Thank you so much for your prayers. They keep me going. Please pray for my stamina and attitude. On one hand I wake up each morning thanking God for every breath. On the other hand, I am getting very tired of having such low energy and strength. Also pray for a perfect donor match to be found. The better the match, the fewer issues I will have in the recovery process. Finally, pray that my bone marrow will stop producing any measurable amount of blast cells. No blast cells (remission) mean higher success rates and lower side effects when going through a stem cell transplant.

You are inspiration and strength to me. Thanks for being my friends.