Mike Report
Hello everyone.
Things are rolling along so thought I’d pass on what we know at this time. Mike continues to feel fine and a little house bound. We have been carrying on with some familiar routines, like having friends over for dinner and visits. This is very nice and feels very normal in a very un-normal situation. Mike is getting a bone marrow biopsy on Wednesday the 22nd. This is to see if he has gone into remission. We are keeping are fingers crossed that he has but have been warned that it may not happen. Obviously for his physical well being we hope he has but also psychologically it would be so nice to have good news. Regardless of the outcome he will start another round of chemo very soon. We have found out that he will be having this round of chemo on an out patient basis. We think this round isn’t as heavy duty as the first round. He is much happier at home than in the hospital but it is a little scary in that the home environment is not as sanitary as a filtered hospital room. This is standard procedure so we follow the program. We will be going down to VGH daily for six days and then back to the every second day routine for three weeks after that. It has become part of our routine so we just plod on..
The search for a donor continues. We found out today that they have found 4 people on the world wide donor list that have made it past two stages of matching and they are checking the next stage on those people. They also continue to search the Canadian database. We have to phone them back in two weeks to find out more. After talking to more people who have had transplants in appears to take awhile to coordinate everything, which takes time. We think it is likely to be at least July before a transplant happens. He has to have the donor available, get a hospital bed, line up radiation treatments, and have another round of chemo all in sequence for it to happen. We just want to hear that they have a donor and then the wait for it to actually take place will be easier. Will let you know the results of the biospy when we know.
I have returned to work two days per week. It gives me a break in the action and believe it or not, I miss working. We are determined to carry on as much as we can with regular stuff. We are somewhat less shell shocked these days. We are taking it as a good sign that Mike does not feel sick and has even gained back a kilo since being home. He has not experienced many of the side effects that we were warned about. We know he has a long way to go for recovery but we take any positive signs that we can.
Your cards, emails, phone calls and good thoughts continue to reach us and are doing exactly what you intend for them to do. Visitors are still welcome but may have to be postponed during the chemo part of the treatment. Will get more details on that kind of stuff from the doctors. A note of caution: All this treatment stuff is subject to change depending on a host of factors so don’t be surprised if everything I’ve said gets changed. We have learned not to expect anything until it is scheduled.