Move along, there’s nothing to see here.

A few posts back, I said that there would surely be more regular updates. Yeah…..I was wrong. I’ll start with the actual health news.

We finally got all the results back from my bone marrow biopsy/aspiration and had long conversations with Dr. Sayegh here in Sacramento and Dr. Miklos at Stanford. The results indicate that there is only about 12-15% marrow involvement, in comparison to about 30% when we went for transplant last year in May. This means that there is less disease present in my bone marrow now than at the same time last year. Dr. Miklos thinks this is due to the total lymphoid irradiation I received as part of the transplant process.

Neither doc could conclude that we needed to move ahead with another transplant right now, even though we have a donor who is a perfect match. From a medical perspective, I’m fairly healthy except for that 12-15% disease presence. The only reason to move forward right now is to get it over with, and that’s not necessarily a good reason, given the risks involved. Both docs said they would support us if we decided to go for it again this year, but couldn’t say with confidence that we should. Through the last few months, Jen and I have been talking about the feeling of being in control of our lives and the contrasting reality that we really aren’t. As much as we want to be done with CLL and the next transplant, the truth is that we don’t feel like it’s the right time. We haven’t heard God telling us to go ahead, and we don’t want to take action without His direction. So, we are waiting until either we get that direction, or there is evidence of disease progression. Yes, disease progression could be that direction.

Other than that, we haven’t been up to much. I planted three trees in the yard, and have slowly been working to get the garage into a state of organization that would allow at least one car to be parked inside. At some point this summer I will build a shed in the side yard. Pictures to follow eventually.