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.

Pit Stop

With 11 laps, rather days, to go Michael needed a pit stop, just like NASCAR, Grand Prix and Indy style racing we see on TV of late.
Friday and Saturday, June 6th and 7th, Michael went from cruse control to a high temperature, complete fatigue, chest pains and labored breathing. That set of symptoms landed him in the hospital for a plethora of test. Results, not sure, so they have him on oxygen, antibiotic's and bed rest. As of Tuesday the 9th they are still testing; however, Michael is greatly improved.
He should be out tomorrow PM and D-Day (D is for discharge) is still set for next Wednesday. At that point everyone gets on a plane, says their prayers, and heads for home!

Two Boxes and 21 Days

While it has been some time since my last posting, everything is going very well and activity is being reduced. I should have written, "all is well as of today", about every 10 days.

Two Boxes. This is my way of looking at the medical treatments now taking place.

• First box holds all the activities to treat the cancer, multiple myilomia. With the cancer, currently, in remission there is little activity going on in this box. Medication to keep new stem cells grafted and functioning. That's all!
• Second box holds all the activities to keep Michael healthy. This becomes a "Catch 22" as drugs are used to prevent cell rejection or new cells fighting old cells. This creates side effects and meds are given to control the side effects. But, these medications have side effects that require attention and more drugs. There is good news is this circular situation, as each drug is be slowly reduced in dosage and kept in balance ratio. A tapering process that will approach zip, zero, nada!
  

The 21 Days is the estimated time line for Michael's release and return to Anchorage. Here he will be under the watchful eye of Dr. Max, his initial oncologist. Medication will continue for several years to forever. After one year, Michael and his medical advisers can start to plan on repair of his degraded vertebra and other bodily repairs.

Things look a lot better now, as opposed, to the summer of 2007.

Real Progress

All types of constant medical activity,, over the last six months has produced positive results! Michael had a blood test and a bone marrow biopsy on Wednesday, April 1st, to check his progress. There were no cancer cells found in his blood or bone marrow, at this time. Further, the new donor stem cells were grafting to his system and producing good balance of new blood cells.

Real progress.

Dangerious Times

Michael received the donor stem sells on March 4th. To keep these donor cells from declaring war on the existing cells that, in sum, that compose his entire body two Rx Meds are critical.
They are MMF and cyclosporine! Michael kept throeing-up the cyclosproine and side effects that run from mild to destruction of organs begin to show up. Only his skin was affected, turned the color of a bad sunburn and felt like saddle leather.

Two days in the hospital and cyclosporine by IV, fixed the problem. He'll do IV induction for seven days then back to pills. The doctors, staff and facilities are outstanding. They seem to always have a "Plan B........Nth at hand. And, spring into action 24/7.

New Stem Cells at the Gate- "And their Off!

Wednesday 3/4/09: The new donor stem cells arrived from Europe by courier. They were check by the lab at The University of Washington Medical Center and declared, "good to go". By 10 PM that evening these cells were cruising through Michael's body, just looking for a home.

To date all is going well, very well. Window for problems is 14-21 day out.

What if the courier dropped the package of stem cells or left them in the Bar at the Munich airport? Redundancy, there was a second container of the donor's stem cells on a flight four hours after the first.

I would have set it up the same way. Cover all the bases and such and such.

Ready, Set, GO!

The donor transplant process has started! Michael started his chemo treatments on Saturday 2/28 and will have three days of chemo. The dosage or strength of the chemo chemicals is only about 1/4 as strong as previous treatments. Side effects are minimal, so far.

He will receive the donor stem cells on Wednesday 3/4.

At this point you wait to see what happens, with certain side effects a sure thing and they get treatment by pre-loading specific meds. The big issues are rejection of the transplanted stem cells and infections. Both will be monitored closely and treated as needed.

But still, it is a wait and see game of watching for positive gains or emerging problems!