Day +130: Hope for Remission

Sarah Today...

My update on Sarah's relapse is late due to our computer being down yesterday, but here it is...

We were not given very encouraging news from Sarah's doctors. We essentially have three options regarding Sarah's relapse:

1. Try to achieve remission using "moderate" chemotherapy w/Dasatinib

2. Try to achieve remission using "extreme" chemotherapy w/Dasatinib

3. No treatment (other than minimizing discomfort)

Dasatinib is a newly approved drug intended for difficult to treat leukemia's.

If options 1 or 2 successfully get Sarah into remission, we'd need to keep her in remission for 3 months and shoot for another bone marrow transplant. Options 1 and 2 have ~10% likelihood of getting Sarah into remission. The difficulty Susan and I have with options 1 and 2 are the low likelihood of achieving remission coupled with the suffering Sarah would likely see with the chemotherapy. She would also possibly spend many of her last days in the hospital and not at home.

The difficulty we have with option 3 is obvious.

Sarah's bone marrow is 95% blasts (cancer cells), but her spinal fluid showed no cancer cells. After much praying by us and many others God led Susan and I to go with option 1. We made that decision this morning and arrived at Dartmouth this afternoon to begin treatment.

We should know if the treatment is being effective in about one week.

We are very hopeful that God will and know that God can cure Sarah of her cancer. Please pray specifically that God will put Sarah back into remission.

-Ben

Matthew 14:24-27