Friday, 6/15/07--Medical exams Preliminarily OK'd to begin Bone Marrow Transplant

This has been a week for my sister and I to have some pretty complete physical exams to make sure each of us can go through our respective Bone Marrow Transplant procedures.

Nancy and her husband, Albert, left Corydon in Southern Indiana at 5:00 AM on Monday for an 8:00 AM appointment at St. Vincent's Oncology Out Patient Unit for extensive blood work and an EKG. They met with another Blood Marrow Doctor at 3:00 PM for a thorough physical.

I met them in the Oncology Out Patient Unit on Monday for the same tests and then had chest, sinus and teeth X-rays. I also had a Muga Heart Scan with a radioactive substance injected into the arm that measures the heart pumping capacity more accurately than a echocardiogram. Apparently some of the Chemo I'll receive prior to receiving the Transplant is more toxic than I've had before and it is necessary to monitor my heart more closely.

Tuesday, I had a Pulmonary breathing test that took almost 2 hours, returned the urine sample that was collected during the previous 24 hours and did the paper work so that I can be automatically checked into the Oncology unit on Tuesday, June 19th at 7:00 AM.

Nancy & I felt pretty confident that we were both in good physical shape and had high hopes that there would be no glitches from any of the medical tests.
However we received a call from Amy, the Bone Marrow Transplant Coordinator, on Wednesday afternoon that the EKG results on BOTH of us showed some abnormalities and it looked like the Transplant process would probably have to be delayed until each of us had been seen and cleared by a Cardiologist.

The good news is that Amy was quick and thorough in making arrangements for my sister to be able to see a Cardiologist in New Albany (without having to drive back to Indianapolis for Thursday afternoon)---her 2nd EKG also showed an irregularity.
Fortunately she was able to schedule other heart tests on Friday that indicates that she should be OK to proceed as a Blood Marrow donor.
Amy scheduled a Friday morning appointment with a Cardiologist for me and my 2nd EKG also showed some kind of abnormality. Fortunately they were able to schedule a Stress-Echo exam that confirmed that everything was OK for me to also proceed with the Transplant process.

So as it stands now, I'll begin the process on Monday, June 18th by having a Hickman catheter installed as an out patient. If nothing changes, I'll return to the Oncology Unit at 7:00 AM Tuesday for 8 days of anti-rejection medications and further Chemo preparing for the Transplant on about June 27th or 28th. (Nancy will return to Indy on Friday 6/22/07 to begin getting injections to produce more white cells & blood marrow with harvesting to begin on Wednesday, 6/27/07)

They project another 10-17 days of hospitalization monitoring for possible rejections and for my blood count numbers to return with my sister's new Bone Marrow.

As Paul Harvey might say: "That's the story of Bob's Acute Leukemia treatment up to now" .

Thanks for continuing to pray for my sister, Nancy, Sharon & I as we go through the next procedures.

P.S. After Sharon's garage sale, several trips to Goodwill & lots of extra stuff for the trash service, we do seem to have more shelving space. :-)