Saturday, March 7

We brought Sarah home from the hospital today. She has been without a fever for several days and the nausea is nearly gone. Her labs this morning did show 1% blasts in her blood. Yesterday she was at 0% blasts. We have decided not to panic about this right now and just continue to pray.

Next week we will take Sarah back up to the hospital for more chemotherapy. This time we'll be giving her high dose methotrexate. The methotrexate was Ben's idea. After looking through Sarah's labs over the last few months and graphing her progress he began to wonder if it was the methotrexate that was causing the big drops in the blast count.

Our dear friend Mildred left for home today. We are very grateful for her help over the past two weeks. We have had a few ideas about who might come next but so far nothing has worked out. It really feels like our support has started to dry up. That may not be entirely real but it sure does feel like it. God has provided the support we need next week through our dear friends the Camuso family. I have faith he will continue to do the same the following weeks on his terms and not ours.
-Susan

3-05-09: Blood Counts Look Good

No blasts were found in Sarah's blood today. She dropped from 5% Tuesday to 2% Wednesday and is at 0% today. We're grateful to God and remain hopeful for Sarah's recovery.

She may be experiencing bone marrow recovery as her WBC count has been creeping upward as her blast count has been creeping downward. There is a small increase in her red blood cells too. No platelets yet though. No Neutrophils yet either.

Sarah has still been barfing but noticeably less over the last 2 days. No fevers over the last 2 days either. The mouth sores she has seem to be improving too.

Sarah has been taking full dose Dasatinib since Saturday, but Susan and I are anxious for her to begin additional chemotherapy. We do not want another short lived remission like December. We plan to discuss continued treatment with Dr. Van Hoff Friday.

Sarah's bone marrow likely still has blasts since her blood just cleared today. The doctors will need to do a bone marrow aspiration to know what's going on in her bone marrow.

Mildred Rembert (up from Alabama) has been staying with us for the past 2 weeks. Mildred was our neighbor when we lived in Alabama years ago. She will be returning home Saturday. Mildred has been a real blessing to our family watching most of the children while Susan and I stay tight with the doctors and of course Sarah. We will always appreciate what she has done for our family and will miss her support and kindness.

Thanks for your prayers (past and continued).
-Ben

3-03-09: Roller Coaster Week

Sarah has been having a roller coaster of a week. She went home Friday (w/Neutropenia) and managed to stay fever free until this morning @ 4:30AM. Dr. Van Hoff told us to bring her in with a measured fever of 102.7F. She'll be in the hospital until Thursday, maybe longer.

The VNA (home visit nurse) came to our house Sunday to draw blood and check Sarah's blood counts. She needed platelet and red blood cell transfusions so we went up to Dartmouth. More blood work at Dartmouth showed a cancer blast reduction in her blood from 45% (Friday) to 8% (Sunday). Todays labs showed another decrease from 8% to 5%. We were really thankful to God for that answer to our prayers.

Sarah's doctors at Dana-Farber are discussing Donor Leukocyte Infusion (DLI) for Sarah if her overall blast count (blood and bone marrow) can be reduced low enough. I believe the DLI would be used as part of a preparative treatment for a second Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT).

Sarah has been feeling lower than her normal self over the last several days. She has been "barfing" (Sarah's terminology) many times during the day for the last several days and her energy level is fairly low too. She does play and interact with her family and the doctors/nurses in between low points.

Pray that she'll start feeling better, have her energy return and reach remission again.

-Ben

3-01-09: Waiting for Bloodwork

Sarah was released from the hospital Friday. Her blast count in her had stopped declining Thursday and actually rose slightly Friday.

She received L-Aspariginase, Methotrexate and Dasatinib Thursday night. Sarah is going to have her blood checked again today (Sunday).

We are hopeful her blood will be free of blasts from the blood work today. Please pray with us for this.

Thanks,
Ben