Thank You for Praying

Thanks to my mom, Kirk's mom, my sister and many other friends and family, prayers for my healing and discernment concerning the transplants are being said by many, both by individuals and by churches whose prayer lists I've been placed on.

Thank you for praying. Because of your prayers, I am now very close to remission. My counts put me today at .5 on a scale that goes down to zero, meaning remission.

God is the total reason I have weathered chemotherapy (Velcade and Dexamethasone) with relatively little pain or loss of strength. I'm not saying it's been easy; sensitivity to medications has been an issue for me my entire life. When prescribed anything by a doctors in the past, I was wont to take only half. With chemo, this God-given sensitivity has worked in my favor because it has brought me from a 5.5 rating to .5 in only 3 months. Nonetheless, being sensitive created other effects that rendered me incapable of doing in the last 2 months things like reading and writing that, as a writer and professor, gave me sustenance and joy. I am still recovering from the loss of reading comprehension, memory and ability to read (at all) or hear subtleties in other's words. But, overall, these past few weeks have been wonderful. Since I am at .5, I have not had to take Velcade injections for about a month, which formerly caused sleeplessness, pain, weakness or migraines. And the steroid--Dexamethasone, which affected my ability to process words and made me paranoid--may not ever be prescribed to me again.

Now, for the bone marrow transplants. According to 2 out of 3 of my doctors (sounds like a Trident commercial,) the best way to go into Complete Remission is to get two transplants, what they call "tandem" transplants. First, one with my own blood, an autologous transplant. Then, second, one with a donor. This is not standard treatment, but requires my involvement in a trial. My sister, unbelievably, is a match for my bone marrow. I say unbelievably because my sister, Lisa, and I could not be more different from one another. She is an engineer; I am a humanities professor. She is brown-haired, lean and analytical; I am blond-haired, not so lean and intuitive. I love her so much. Because God made her a match, I have the rare option of having a sibling bone marrow donor for a 2nd transplant. But there are risks. The risks, I believe, are not as great for those who are young, since children, teens and young people (43 is young comparatively) are now routinely given donor transplants for Leukemia with success. There is apparently a 10% chance of death, even among these young people and people like me who are relatively young and have responsive cancers and no symptoms. There are side effects of allo-transplants, as well. Some of which are necessary to get the graft v. Myeloma effect that will rid my bone marrow of all cancerous plasma cells. Some side effects are chronic and even deadly.

If you pray, please ask God to give me and my family wisdom about the transplants.

For those of you who need to know what date the auto-transplant begins for me at MD Anderson (in Houston,) I have nothing to report. I am told it will most likely be mid-February. For those of you in cyber-space who have been through or are awaiting a transplant or two for MM, please don't hesitate to contact me. Whatever the case, for the auto-transplant I will be in Houston near MD Anderson at an apartment Kirk and I will rent for six weeks. It is an "out-patient" procedure.

On February 6-9, 2007, I'll be at MD Anderson getting my monthly check up and staying at the Rotary Hotel, which is only a foot-bridge away from all my appointments. Though it is expensive to stay there, insurance covers it and flights completely. It is actually more expensive to drive, since gas is reimbursed only .20 for each $1.

Note: We need help on our animals! I'm not supposed to bring them because my immunity will be at zero. Also, our house has to be scoured from top to bottom before I return. If you have any ideas or solutions, we'd love to hear them. Money is tight with meeting our deductible and out of pocket expenses. Thankfully insurance covers much, but it is still extremely expensive. So please: no expensive (over $100 or $200) solutions.