Skip to main content

Day +75 update

Hello friends and family,

I hope everyone is having a fantastic start to the new year and optimistic that 2021 will be a much better year than 2020.

Sitting here at Day +75, I am doing well overall.  My blood counts continue to fluctuate between a low and "close to normal" level.  I continue to be on way too many medications.  The exciting news is that Connie and I have a target date of February 10th for our return drive to Colorado.

My doctor refers to the fluctuating blood counts and how I feel overall as "a battle raging between your original cells and the donor cells".  This is expected at this point with the recovery not expected to be a continual, straight line improvement.  There are constant ups and downs, with the overall trajectory looking very positive.  The +100 day mark is a key milestone since history shows that issues are most common during the first 100 days, but it is not uncommon for issues to arise in the first year, into year 2 and beyond.  This currently translates into an up and down to my energy level and mood (just ask Connie who gets me back on track), continued monitoring and adjustment to my medications. 

I'll be the first to admit that medications have saved my life.  Medications have both controlled my cancer and prevented new complications, especially during these past 4 months of my stem cell transplant journey.  The cancer treatments have got me through the past 12+ years since my initial CLL diagnosis, the chemotherapy eradicated the cancer to prepare my body for the transplant, the prophylactic medications have keep me infection free, and new medications have addressed the complications I've experienced during the critical 100 day post-transplant phase.

The combination of the cellular battle and medication side affects have created a series of "speed bump" issues.  Gout, which was induced by the chemo is mostly under control.  More recently, I was diagnosed with medically induced diabetes which was caused by the Prednisone to treat Gout along the myriad of other medications.  I now am checking my blood glucose level 4 times per day, on 2 diabetic medications and on a strict diet. This seems to be working

The reality is that I will continue to fight these type of issues as they arise for the foreseeable future, but remain incredibly optimistic that this journey will lead to my overall objective - cure my cancer.  As I sit here today, it is just a 3 week countdown to our packing up the car and heading back to Colorado.  All I can think about is being in the comfort of our own home, playing with Goose, seeing the kids and friends, and hiking / biking on our amazing trails. Can't wait!

Gary


Recent photo with Colorado painting at MD Anderson


Comments

  1. Kris RowellJanuary 25, 2021 at 11:59 AM

    Hi Gary & Conster!
    I’m so glad things are progressing well.
    What a journey this past year!
    Crossing my fingers you’ll both be home soon. Love the blog updates!!
    Kris

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJanuary 29, 2021 at 9:00 PM

    You two are inspirational. Keep up the great fight. We do not take anything in this life for granted. Stay strong and we'll be in touch. Much love, Belle and Mike

    ReplyDelete
  3. NeilFebruary 4, 2021 at 7:32 PM

    Glad to hear things are still on a positive trajectory. Hope things continue moving in the right direction for your trip home. Take care and hope to hear more good news down the line.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Story

 Hello Family and Friends, Thank you for following my blog and your love and support over the years and especially now during my Journey to a Cure.  I thought I would start this BLOG by telling my story and how I got to the point where a bone marrow transplant is the next best step in my cancer battle.  And hopefully a long term, durable cure. In September 2008, during a routine physical exam, my white blood cell count came back unusually high. The next month was busy with many doctor appointments, tests, learning, and ultimately a diagnosis - at the age of 44 I had cancer and specifically CLL or Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia.   CLL is usually an older patient disease, a slowly progressing disease, and at the time already had some good treatment options.  Many CLL patients never need treatment and I had the “good marker”, 13q deletion to be technical. CLL is not hereditary (although my Uncle Marc did have CLL later in his life) and like many cancers the exact cau...
8 comments
Read more

Day +18: Engraftment!

The MD Anderson blood testing process is a factory.  When you go in for a blood draw, there is a bank of over 50 stations ready to draw your blood.  Combined with all the test requests from the hospital rooms like mine, from the buildings full of clinics, blood donations,... it’s amazing they can turn around results within an hour.    Yesterday (Day +17), they had a technical issue that backed up this process and had to redraw my blood late in the afternoon.   This turned out to be a godsend as the result was a White Blood Cell (WBC) count of 0.1.  This result, repeated and confirmed this morning, means I currently have 100 WBCs per liter of blood.  The average person walks around with 5 liters of blood and within the normal range of 5-10 thousand WBCs per liter.  So, I have around 500 white blood cells on the way to a normal level of over 25,000. It’s not much, but something to build upon.  And most importantly, it means the engraftment proc...
6 comments
Read more

The End of the Journey

I've been reluctant to post this final entry in my Journey to a Cure blog.   My journey began in October 2008 when I was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) during a routine physical.  Over the ensuing 14 year period, I've gone through 4 different treatment protocols and a stem cell transplant.  While I never let cancer define me, it consumed a lot of my time and energy over these 14 years.  To be honest, I rarely thought about life after cancer as it just didn't seem achievable.  Therein lies my reluctance, but I'm going to say it out loud for the first time - I'M CURED OF CANCER! Somebody pinch me, I must be dreaming. After my hospital stay for pneumonia in March 2022 and a case of the flu in May 2022, my health surprisingly took a positive turn in July of 2022.  During what had become a routine check up, my blood test results showed that I was starting to create my own white blood cells.  My immune system was finally coming back ...
Post a Comment
Read more