Another Step Closer

April 26, 2010

One month after resuming the blog, there is news to report.

First and foremost many thanks to all of you who continue to carry me along on a sea of love and support as make my way. The process, while rarely painful, is a long one that requires patience I never knew I possessed! Your outpouring of support keeps me grounded and focused and forward thinking always, but especially on days when my patience is wearing thin or when I am feeling less than "tip top". You cannot begin to imagine the power of your collective words, cards, prayers, good wishes, and more. Each of you separately, and all of you together keep me uplifted in ways that cannot be measured. As I find my way to a cure, that victory will belong to all of us.

Shortly after my last entry, I received two more sessions of chemo to help eradicate the pain caused by the tumors that were discovered in January. My body accepted the chemo with relative ease, and the pain was relieved nearly immediately. Once I had a chance to recover from the chemo treatment, the next step was to watch my blood counts to be sure I was healthy enough for the next step. After a week of going to the hospital every morning for my counts, transfusions of platelets and red cells and white cell shots every day, my numbers finally came up high enough to begin the next step.

Last Tuesday and Wednesday my amazing medical team at Presbyterian/St. Luke was able to harvest more than seven million stem cells....yep, 7,000,000! That's more than enough for a transplant. I was able to produce enough cells, so no additional treatments were needed on that front. The best news is the process, which took place just a week ago, now seems like a distant memory and all those juicy stem cells are in the freezer for now. This is a BIG step!

This morning I went for a CT scan to determine what effect the chemotherapy earlier this month had on the existing tumors. Given the outcome of the scan, the next step will be determined. Very likely, I will begin yet another round of chemo to eliminate the existing cancer once and for all!! Once that takes place, the actual transplant process can begin.

There are a couple of things to note here. One is in order to get a strong harvest, the existing cancer couldn't be treated until now. It seems multiple rounds of chemotherapy weaken one's stem cells. The second is that the doctors know my body responds well to chemo. While the next round of chemo will undoubtedly take longer than I would like, if it cleans out the existing cancer before we begin the transplant process, it will be well worth the extra time and effort.

Soon the new chemotherapy will begin. I will continue to keep you posted as my healing process continues. Again, thank you, each and every one of you, for all you do to help me through this detour....much longer than I ever anticipated, but surely with a positive end in sight!