Feelin' Good...

Went to see the dr. yesterday. Good news! My white blood count is down to 24,000. Previously before this at my last appt it had been 37,000, so this was great news. I have also been feeling really good lately which has been a huge blessing. So my dr. said that it is pretty clear that the Gleevec medicene is helping which is great. However, he did discuss with me the possibility of doing a transplant sometime next year, perhaps in the summer. We will keep watching my counts, and I will keep going back to him monthly right now to monitor everything and make sure it doesn't get worse. But he said that because I'm young/healthy, he thinks it's wise for me to get the transplant soon, because #1, it would cure me, and #2, if I didn't get it, and just took Gleevec or another med for the rest of my life, (which would be imperative), there is a risk that it could develop into Acute Leukimia or something more serious than right now. Obviously there are risk factors doing the transplant, but he thinks because of my age it's better to go ahead with it. So, nothing is really set in stone at this point, but it looks like I might be doing the transplant next summer. What would this entail? Well, I would have to carve out about 3 months of my schedule to do it. I'd have to get chemotherapy for 6-8 days, then be in the hospital for almost 3 weeks, receive the new bone marrow, and then for about 2 months come back and forth to the hospital for checkups and monitoring. The highest risk factor of the transplant if after they wipe out the white blood cells, because I wouldn't have anything to fight off any type of infection with.

Thank you all for your continued prayers and support. Your prayers are felt every day. I hope to see all of you at some point over the holiday season and thank you in person!

By His Grace Alone,
Luke

mmmmmmmmmmmkay...

Hey! It's been a while, but that usually is a good thing, b/c not much has happened. I wrote last time about some intermitent pain. The last couple of weeks, the pain levels have varied from 3-7 or so. I have taken the pain medication they gave me a couple of times, although I don't enjoy taking it because it knocks me out, but try to take just advil if I can stand it. My doctor had upped my dosage of Gleevec last dr visit to 400 mg a day, wanting to see what effect that had on me. Well, because I had been on 100 mg a day, I ran out of the pills in a few days, with no refills because I was still getting everything worked out with the Novardis company who is paying (thankfully!) for my Gleevec prescriptions for the next year. So there was a period of about 3 days I wasn't getting any medications. I saw the doctor yesterday after having some more intense bone pain, especially around my ribs, and my white blood count was up again to 37,000. Obviously, not going in the direction we would like because two weeks before it was at 21,000. Also, my red blood cells were really low. Doc said this would definitley cause me to feel bad as well as exhausted, both of which I have been. And although I was not glad about feeling that way, at least I had an explanation for the feelings. So, doc said it could have been those 3 days off the meds that were the result of the pain/higher counts. He is keeping me at 400 mg for now and seeing how that effects me.

Also, in good news, they found a donor for me!!! Sometimes this process can take months but praise the Lord they have found a perfect match for all my tissue HLA typings. That is good in case the Gleevec ends up not working or isn't doing the job as fast as doc would like.

Thank you for all your continued support. God bless all of you and please let me know how I can pray for you.

Luke