12-17-08: Thank you God for Remission #2

I have had only limited access to the internet lately, so another late update on Sarah.
Sarah was released from the hospital Monday evening. Her blood pressure is stable and she’s taking two blood pressure medications. The doctors felt comfortable with this as long as we did.

Sarah had a lumbar puncture (intrathecal chemo) and a bone marrow (BM) biopsy today (Wednesday). This was an outpatient visit and we left the hospital ~3:30pm. On the way home Dr. Van Hoff (one of Sarah’s oncologists) called my cell phone with the initial BM results. Sarah’s BM was in remission!! There were no blasts (mature cancer cells) found in her BM under microscopic examination. There are also two higher resolution (molecular) tests being conducted on her BM. The doctor said he would expect to see some pre-blast cancer activity from the molecular testing. We’ll learn more over the next week.

The doctors told us Sarah might have a 10% likelihood of reaching remission this time. Sarah’s BM was 95% blast a little more than one week ago and now it’s not microscopically detectable in either her blood or her BM. The doctors said they did not expect these results and early on strongly suggested that no treatment was a reasonable course of action. Susan and I prayed really hard and often that she would reach remission again and I know that countless others have been doing the same. From Sarah’s doctors and nurses to folks outside of the US like India and Israel. I know that God always hears our prayers. He doesn’t always give us exactly what we ask for, but he always answers. Thank you God for hearing and answering our prayers. We are grateful that you directed us to continue treatment for Sarah and for the miraculously bringing her into remission again.

We are waiting for her recover from the encephalopathy that was brought on by the Dasatinib. We are watching Sarah and praying that within a few days she will be responding normally to her surroundings. She hasn’t been on the Dasatinib for 2 days now.

We aren’t sure where Sarah’s treatment is headed next. A revised chemo protocol should follow and then preparation for bone marrow transplant #2 I guess. More good news…
The initial BM donor database search yielded ~16 potential matches for Sarah. More on that as we get closer to a transplant.

-Ben
Numbers 11:21-23