6/19/06

Sorry it's been awhile everyone....life has been kinda crazy here lately. First, the good news: Jen is home again!!! I brought her home yesterday. Now the not so good news: the leukemia isn't completely gone. Let me backtrack for a moment to catch everyone up. Memorial Day weekend Jen was able to come home for a day (mainly so she could see our cats). She wasn't feeling real hot the next day, so we headed back to Baltimore for the remainder of the weekend. I'll admit that having her home for the one day left me wanting more....the apartment just doesn't feel the same without her there. Turns out that Jen's little sojourn home left her with an acute infection, so it was back to taking tons of antibiotics to clear it up. Everything appeared to be on track until the docs noticed that there were still some leukemia blasts in Jen's blood work. Dr. Levis moved up her follow-up bone marrow biopsy, which confirmed that the leukemia was in fact not completely gone. Jen's numbers started to skyrocket again, so she went back on oral chemo, and was placed on another clinical trial (CEP-701 is the drug if anyone is interested) to help keep her numbers down. Jen's sister Marie came back into town this past week so that her lymphocytes (otherwise referred to as T-cells) could be harvested and given to Jen. This procedure is suppose to guarantee a case of Graft-vs-Host Disease, and presumably kill off the remainder of Jen's own stem cells. If this goes off, Jen should be "cured"; however, GVHD is no walk in the park....if must be closely monitored and controlled, lest the war going on inside her body claim her in the fight. For now she will be returning to Hopkins three days a week (she currently has my mom here to help), and once GVHD happens, she will most likely be back in the hospital for two weeks while the doctors bring it under control. For now I am simply thankful that I have Jen home to celebrate our three-year anniversary on Wednesday. Unfortunately, this disease has cost us too many holidays already....hope everyone is doing well. Take care, and enjoy the summer!

Jeremy