October 27, 2010 - A Meeting Among Us

Hi everyone! What an eventful last few days. After finding out about the meeting that was planned today, Alex's dad decided he wanted to fly in from Florida to attend. Of course Alex was thrilled! It's so nice to have him around for all this. Dave got into town on Tuesday and him and Alex got to spend a GREAT day together. This was the first time that they have been able to do something outside the hospital since all this happened. They had a great dinner together at the Melting Pot and she even slept over with him at his hotel. He also got early morning clinic duty.

First things first... Alex went into the clinic today early this morning and had a lumbar puncture where they administered 3 different types of chemotherapy. This was a new thing for her. She was examined in the clinic and then went right downstairs for the lumbar puncture and she also had a Bone Marrow biopsy. After the recovery room her and her dad went back upstairs to the clinic where Dan and I met them for the meeting. We had a little bit of a SNAFU about Alex's doctor not being able to make it... but when I kindly pointed out that was not an option and he must... it seemed that he changed his mind :D We all met with Alex's oncologist and also with the bone marrow director. It was really nice that Dave was able to meet Dr. Pulsipher. After presenting them both with all of my questions and getting TONS of information, we have definitely decided that the Bone Marrow transplant is the best option for Alex. It was actually NOT a hard decision for Alex to make. And we all agreed. First of all, going the chemotherapy route alone only has a 50% success rate. The bone marrow success rate on a person like Alex... with the matches they have found... is in the 80% For me, this really wasn't a hard choice. I guess if you were to have a diagnosis like Alex and there were NO good matches, then yea, maybe then you would choose to go the chemotherapy route and hope for the best. BUT... for Alex to be as healthy as she is AND for them to have put the leukemia in remission this fast, it seems the ideal time for a Bone Marrow transplant. Even her oncologist said that if we did choose to go the BMT route that now would be the best time. Not down the road. The chemotherapy way to treat everything would be another 2 years of chemo. The BMT way is more chemo right up front, but after the day the BMT happens there will be no more chemo. There will be many medications, but no more chemo.

So... the course of action is... We have another 5 weeks (35 days) of treatment. Day 1 is set to start on Monday. This will start with 5 days in the hospital. After the 5 days if she is fever free she'll be able to return home. After the 5 weeks have been completed she will have a 3 week break. This will give her organs a break and also her tissue... blood counts will stabilize again... and the risk of infections will decrease. THEN it's time. With my calculations that would be Christmas day. I am thinking that we could hold them off until Monday morning. It would be sooooo nice to have her home for Christmas before all this madness starts! I guess we'll find out soon enough.

So... I also talked with the BMT team today. The HLA matching is underway. They have already received 3 of the 5 matches that they sent out for. The other two should be here any day. At this point the University of Utah does extensive matching on the samples to make sure they are as identical as possible. The testing is almost complete on the 3 they have in so far. The coordinator who is named Stephanie (catchy name) said that she would come see us while we were inpatient and let us know about the other 2 matches and how the progress is going.

Alex felt well enough to spend the rest of the day with her dad. I tell you, she is one tough cookie! I would still be under the bed sucking my thumb since August... but not her. She puts on a smile... jokes around with us... and then decides to make the best of this last day with her dad. Dave asked if he could take us all out to dinner tonight so we met him and Alex at a great Greek place in Salt Lake. It was SUCH a nice evening. Alex was SOOO happy. We discussed the meeting and unanimously thought that the BMT was the best decision. I am extremely happy that we weren't presented with choices today that were hard to make. Here are some photos from tonight. It was such a nice thing having Dave her for all this. And so glad we could be together as the team that we are going to have to be to get through this.

This is such a great photo of Dave and Alex. I just love it!