Leaving Seattle

Slightly behind with the news; however, creative excuses given in last paragraph. .

Great news, Michael was released by the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) on Wednesday, June 17th, and he returned to his new apartment in Anchorage. Sue left on the same day after a full medical review by the staff at SCCA. I flew out to Austin a day earlier.

Status: Michael left with a, now minor, infection in his right leg. SCCA staff wanted 90 days of assisted living in Anchorage but a compromise was achieved when "in-home care" was arranged to complete his antibiotic treatments and start Michael out with some good habits on preparing and scheduling his meds. This is working out very well, so far.

Cancer is in remission and the few cancer cells present in his bone marrow will soon die off or be consumed by white cells now being produced by his new and maturing anti immune system. This system is the product of the last donor stem cell transplant.

The cancer may reoccur; however, Michael is currently healthy and we know he responds very will to the treatments and transplants. It was not an eight month cake walk but he responded faster and with better results than the staff expected.

Michael will be undergoing medical treatments under the watchful eye of Dr. Max and Dr. Turk for the next 18 months or longer. The focus is now on treatments and medication to prevent his body from rejecting the donor cells. Two primary drugs that require a very fine balance, in his blood system, are keeping the two sets of cells from going to war with each other.
I realize that sounds way to simple but that is the situation. Think of two bad dogs separated by a fence, the meds are the fence. With a good healthy life style Michael should be good to go and have his spine repaired when he stops taking the anti-rejection drugs. That is two years out and he was within two day of two years of a continuous treatments from the day he was diagnosed with multiple myelomia, June 19, 2007.

To reach the current status we have received a tremendous outpouring of love, help, prayers and support. This has come from close friends, old classmates, church members, churches with unknown members and flat out total strangers. A thank you is just not adequate for a response the support received. Actually, I do not have the words and skill to express our appreciation to the many. I will add a special "thank you" to a very special helper and new friend, Steve. This is a story that requires more time and space than we have in this blog.

I was in an Internet vortex, think Brady, Texas.