Last Dr. Visit

We have not posted for several days as Elisabeth is visiting at Bob and Laurie's in Chicago, the cousins had a band concert she wanted to be at. And neither Penny or I could figure out how to get on our own blog site without our resident computer girl. (miss you Elisabeth) We realized today that one of the computers is programed so you just click on it and the others don't, so when she gets home I will need another IT class. My appointment in Iowa City went well on Thursday Dr. Jamieson who is my main Dr. spent a lot of time talking with us about what our options are and the direction they recommend, I found it and Penny did too just kind of comforting to have everything laid out a little more. Pretty much they think I will have the transplant in about 2 months. The reason for the delay is I have started to respond to the new Chemo pills that they put me on, our questiion was, Well why don't we just stay on that then? And she explained that they do not believe it will work very long apparently over the last several weeks they have been monitoring the amount of " Blasts " in my blood and they had been growing fairly rapidly. When you get "Blasts " thats bad it means the Leukemia is growing very rapidly that was why they were thinking I needed the transplant so fast, they wanted to do it before it gets completely out of hand. Well the new drug is slowing down these "Blasts" so they think it will buy some time so they can continue with the other drugs that are getting rid of other infections they don't want to deal with at transplant. The new drug I am on is the 2nd generation of Gleevec which is the drug I was on first that is the "Miracle" drug for CML Leukemia patients it works on 80% of the people and for me it was working for about 3-6 months before it failed. Their feeling is the second one will do the same thing but if they could get me into even a slight remission on that drug it increases the chances of killing off the most leukemia cells during transplant. About 80% of the people who have successful transplant still get Graff to Hoist disease to some extent and it can be anything from 6 months to a year of being sick to chronic lifelong side effects some of which are pretty bad so I am very happy that they are being cautious and while anxious to get started still want to be patient for the best possible outcome. I am feeling pretty good just seem to get a little more fatigued than before but I'm still on a lot of medications so its probably mostly from that. We had a visit yesterday from Justin and Dillan had a great time, went down and saw the baby ducklings and Dillan fed them, she is adorable. (calls me granpop) We continue to feel very fortunate for good Drs. and lots of support from friends God continues to take care of our needs and all in all lifes good! When Elisabeth gets home I will have her post a blog that is more fun I believe she is the better writer in the family. Have a great weekend.
Lance