Book II - Road to BMT

As you may know Dana and Mike are running the Nike half-marathon and helping Team-in-Training raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The TNT team made me an honored teammate, and in my bio for the team I wrote the following

"However, one thing that will remain with probably every cancer warrior is the thought that this is not the end of it. And in many if not most cases, it isn’t. The cancer will return, or another type of cancer will return. Every chemo treatment you get has a potential side effect of causing cancer. Every day at some moment I ask myself, is it back, how do I feel? If I get a nosebleed I go get a blood test. I read about that 11 year-old girl in Pismo that recently died of ALL, after a 5-year remission, and it saddened me that she wasn’t as lucky as I, and that we hadn’t yet found a cure that worked for her.

So that is why what all of you (TNT members) are doing is so important. When I was in Stanford, I was the lucky person that comes through once a year and doesn’t really get sick, from disease or chemo. I went on long walks 3 times/day, and I always went through the Children’s Hospital to the rooftop garden. The kids looked so sick, and all I could think was how difficult it must be for them and their families to go through this. The treatment that some research team is going to come up with will save some lives, maybe mine, maybe some little kid’s and his family's lives. I know it would destroy me to have to bury one of my children. "

That was an emotional plea, and it has come home to roost. Tomorrow I am going back to Stanford to begin the process for a bone marrow transplant. The leukemia is back.

About 3 weeks ago I started having serious acid reflux attacks, enough to put me in the ER ruling out heart attacks. This led to some testing of my gallbladder, and finally they removed my gallbladder July 5th. I met with the surgeon 5 days later, and he told me to call my oncologist, the biopsy showed lymphoblastic cells in the gallbladder, i.e. the leukemia had returned (or something equally nasty). I met with Dr. Spillane the next day, and he said get ready, we're going back to Stanford next week. . He did a bone marrow biopsy the next day, and now it is Sunday. He reassured me that this was going to work out fine, his most recent patient just had it done six months ago and is doing fine.

Barring any new development I am gearing up to go to Stanford tomorrow. I have lots of questions and no answers yet, predominantly "If we haven't identified a donor yet, why would we start the Induction Phase?" The Induction Phase is much like last time, 2-4 weeks of high-dose chemo to shut everything down, then presumably a bone marrow transplant from one of my siblings that starts it all out clean. There is a method to it all and I just am in high anxiety sorting it out.

I think subconsciously I knew this was coming. I had been prepping my office for the demise of me, but I thought it was so I could golf more. I reorganized my home desk, changed a lot of bills to auto-pay, and updated a lot of financial info so Dana would understand it.

So, I get to retire again, and have a more carefully planned visit to Stanford. Needless to say, Dana is a pillar of strength and composure. We had our cry and now must move on. The blog gets reactivated and the hair goes away again. The prognosis is that I go through the process again and Iʼll be fine. Iʼll let you know more as I learn more.