Tuesday morning update from doctors

Jackie and I visited with the doctors at length this morning. We spent over an hour with Dr. Hogan the transplant specialist and 30 minutes or so with Dr. Zent the hematologist.

Jackies blood numbers are, for the most part, good. She has improved in nearly every field with the exception of platelets. They were 10 today. They are not sure why this is happening, but they will be changing her chemo treatment to better try and manage the situation. They will give her the normal chemo session today but she will be taking Rituxan, the monoclonal antibody drug every Tuesday in Tulsa for the next two weeks. The hope is that this will further reduce her CLL count in her marrow and allow more platelets to form.

They want to begin the donor type matching ASAP. I get the feeling they want to begin a transplant procedure sooner, rather than later. We will first type and crossmatch Laura Lindsey to see if she is a possible donor. After that it may be necessary to have a donor drive to come up with as many candidates as possible. We'll know more in the coming weeks.

We still plan on leaving tomorrow and being in OK for Thanksgiving.

Until later....

Bruce