April 21, 2003

Rebounding!

Howdy! That's not very clever or original but, this mass email stuff is going to tax the limits of my creativity.

>Went to the oncologist this afternoon and asked a bazillion questions and discussed the next round of chemo to start 5 May. After our discussion they tested Jade's blood and he is like a week ahead of schedule as far as his blood goes. He is showing levels that shouldn't be seen until next week when which would be Week 4 (3 weeks after chemo). His white count (12.9), red count (4.5) and platelettes (104) are all higher than the oncologist had anticipated. We were so thrilled. It seems despite the cystitis of the bladder and a couple other side effects his body has rebounded quite well from the chemo. (Our oncologist said with the levels of cytoxin he was given and without the mesna [to protect his bladder] he would have died from cystitis of the bladder. We are taking more preventive measures before round 2 starts.)

Next on our agenda is getting ready to meet with a bone marrow transplant doc to discuss harvesting Jade's stem cells (when and how often and when to autotransplant them back to him).

>We feel pretty lucky to have gotten the news today that we did. We can't help but believe it's a result of everyone's faith, prayers and positive energy. Thank you so much. We are forever grateful.

Jade is noticing the hair starting to come out. We're at day 13 today and the oncologist said it would definitely happen by days 15-17. He's noticing it comes out quite easy but isn't completely just falling out in clumps yet. His attitude his so great though; "Hey at least this way we know the chemo is working." That's amazing since my feeble brain wouldn't have come up with that positive thought. He's really hanging tough.

He has hated being so isolated the past week or so but since his energy has been low it's made it a little easier. He's hoping to actually try and do a couple things over the next week to ten days. We'll see what his energy is like.

Thanks for everything. We are so grateful for the voice mails, emails and cards. What do people with cancer do without a support system as amazing as ours?

Have a good week and as always, we'll keep you posted with the rest of the story..........

Love...........Tanya and co.