Back in the Hospital

Well, today I am back in the hospital for another round of chemotherapy. I did not know till this morning that I was coming back today for sure.

I had my appointment in St. Louis at Barnes last week. They reviewed my records and recommended a bone marrow transplant. My doctor (and Teresa and I, too) would like to get another opinion before we decide what to do. Dr. Lanzotti is trying to get me an appointment at the University of Chicago with a Dr. Larsen, I think. He is a big researcher in Leukemia. My friend Doug is also having somebody at the Cleveland clinic look at things and after all that we should be able to make a better decision. We are going ahead with having my brother checked to see if he is a match. He said he would be happy to do it. There is a 25% chance he would be a match for the donor. If he is not a match they will check the National Bone Marrow Registry to see if they can find a match. As a white male, there is an 80% chance of finding a match there.

Whether or not I do the transplant I was due for another round of chemo. This is called consolidation therapy. It is designed to keep me in remission. If I do not do the transplant, I will do three rounds of this about a month apart. If I do the transplant, it will depend on how long it takes to find a donor to decide if I get a second or third round. They expect me to be in for about 2 weeks or so. Since I had such a hard time before, it could be longer. I am hoping shorter as my youngest son, Michael, has a birthday December 12. This time I get a 2 hour infusion of high dose chemo twice a day on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. They expect my counts to go down and I can get a fever again. How my temperature is, how my counts are, and how well I can eat will determine when I can go home.

My triple lumen Hickman catheter( a special IV into my jugular vein with 3 channels for IV fluids) came out when I was at home. I am not exactly sure how that happened but it did. Therefore, I am getting a new one put in today.

I would like all of you to keep me in your prayers again. I will try again to keep this blog updated daily, now that I am back in. Hopefully this stretch will be a short one and soon I will be back home again with family and friends.

Doc