Thursday, January 15, 2009

Heartache for Others...Please PRAY for Dan

I (literally) randomly read this online and as a result am on my knees for these people I've never met and whom my only contact with is from a few posts on their blog.

Dan has AML and remission is currently not his, perhaps someone reading this knows of some way to help Dan, it could be...for God works in mysterious ways, let us never forget that, always hope, never stop believing and continue to ACTIVELY pray...

Posted by: unusualadventure | January 15, 2009
Last week, Dan, Erin & Tanya went to an appointment with the Fred Hutchinson Centre in Seattle where it was recommended strongly by Dr Klimo and VGH that we go for a ‘consultation’. I suppose we went down there expecting to hear of several options and ”trials” that Dan could look at. So, it was a bit of a shock to hear that they felt Dan’s 3 chemo’s not resulting in remission meant that Dan could no longer expect ordinary/standard AML treatments to work and they had nothing for him.

Initially, they told us that
Dan was now in the category of looking for a new ‘break-through’ drug - something that hasn’t been tried before…and recommended that Dan go to MD Anderson in Houston, Texas - a facility that leads the US in innovative new trials for Cancer and Leukemia. They advised Dan that he should listen to all the options there, decide who he wanted to work with - and to go for it. Basically - to take a dart and see which Trial it landed on…a little unsettling. However, the more we talked, specifically about Dan’s chromosome abnormalities and the appearing and disappearing of his “Deletion Q5″, the more they became convinced that, at least initially, they would advise VGH that Dan go on a combination course of Mylotarg, Revlimid, and one other drug…basically a more experimental program than VGH was recommending…to hopefully buy some time

It is hard not to feel a sense of urgency, despite how well Dan mostly feels and looks, as his blood counts are not as strong as they used to be….and it’s hard not to be concerned about how quickly the Leukemia is growing. However, that is precisely what Dan is trying to do – not go by tests, but go by how he feels.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful journey. I hope they keep Dan's progress updated. There are so many forces of healing to be reckoned with.

Anonymous said...

Oh brother...that was me Delilah!! I am workerbee too! LOL