Treatment 8 to a cure!

Hello Everyone,

Glad everyone is still checking in on the blog. Well, Wednesday was an OK day not good and a little bad. We should all realize that Leukemia is not an easy disease to control or cure. As a matter of fact, it is very difficult to control and cure, so everything doesn’t always go according to plan.

You might have guessed that my blood numbers are not responding as expected with the Rituxan. We have a theory but I will not bore you with the technical mumbo jumbo, let’s just say that Rituxan attaches to the cancer cell and expects the immune system to come by and kill the cancer. In practice this works if your immune system is operating properly, unfortunately my immune system is compromised so we are not seeing the progress we would like to have seen by now. I spoke to the doctors on this and they want to forge ahead for another week. I feel we have wasted three weeks. But, as with all various treatments you move on and figure out what to do next.

So, after I got home yesterday, I was in a bit of a bad mood. I am over it! I just keep telling myself that the goal is to win the war not every battle.

My spirits were lifted when my beautiful daughter, Hannah, showed me just how grown up she is getting when she performed perfectly in her school play. She played the character from the Cat in the Hat, Sally. She was great! I am very proud of her. Next time you get a chance ask her about it.

On a lighter side people in my neighborhood will be happy that we have finally put up a blind on our back window. It took three hours and looks great!

I go back to U of M on Friday for treatment 9.

Talk with you then,
Gary