August 7, 2004

Main Page • John's Journal (2000-2003) • CLL Information • Contact John • Seattle Cancer Care Alliance • MD Anderson

"The truth is, if you ask me to choose between winning the Tour de France and cancer, I would choose cancer. Odd as it sounds, I would rather have the title of cancer survivor than winner of the Tour, because of what is has done for me as a human being, a man, a husband, a son, and a father." Lance Armstrong



Congratulations Lance on making history with a record breaking six consecutive Tour De France bicycle race victories. As a cancer survivor himself, Lance offers hope and inspiration to millions of cancer patients and it was so exciting to cheer for him this past month. I may never win the Tour De France, but I plan to follow Lance's example in continuing to pursue my goals and dreams despite the temporary setback and challenges of cancer.

I am at day 95 post transplant and the long recovery process continues. Hard to believe, but my time at SCCA is coming to a close. Soon the medical team at SCCA will turn my care over to my local oncologist. Currently, most of my time at the clinic is now spent going through many of the tests I went through during my pre-transplant work up: cat scans, pulmonary function tests, bone marrow draw, etc. The purpose of re-doing all these tests is to see how my body has held up through the transplant process and to determine if there are any concerns which need to be addressed prior to releasing me. If everything stays on track I should be released next week.

Yesterday the doctors went over my day 84 bone marrow results and everything looks good:

CD-33 Cells (Produce RBC, WBC, and Platelets) - 100% Donor
CD-3 Cells (Produce germ fighting cells) - 89.6% Donor
FISH Test (Test for chromosome abnormalities such as my CLL) - 2.8%

The results show that I'm on track and that the CLL is slowly decreasing. Definitely praiseworthy results! Thank you Lord and thank you to everyonewho continues to pray for my healing. The transplant is definitely working.

The main challenges lately have been a cold (coughing and congestion) and a Staph (type of bacteria) infection in my blood. Fortunately, the cold symptoms are improving and the doctors decided yesterday to end a three week infusion of Vancomyocin, indicating that the Staph infection was under control. My skin GVH (graft versus host disease) has settled down and the rash has decreased significantly. My doctors started tapering me off the Prednisone today. If my rash doesn't flare up I should be off the Prednisone in about two weeks. I look forward to getting rid of the puffy cheeks and gaining some weight and strength back. Currently I am about ten pounds under weight, which is better than a few weeks ago when I was down about twenty pounds. Fatigue and loss of strength continue to be a battle, but I know in time they will both improve. I wasn't able to exercise much when the cold symptoms and Staph infections were at their peak, so I look forward to getting back to a regular exercise routine because it makes such a huge difference in how I feel both physically and mentally.

I have expressed my thanks to many people throughout my transplant journey for their help and support and I just wanted to say a special thank you to Northwestern Landscaping for taking care of my yard this past several months. The yard looks beautiful. You guys are doing an awesome job. I also need to thank my neighbor Jay for his help in keeping the yard beautiful. Jay comes by and does the extra things such as watering the dry spots and chasing the elusive mole. Together, Northwestern Landscaping and Jay have my yard looking like a park.

Please lift up the following specific prayer requests:

-My GVH stays under control as I taper off the Prednisone
-Complete elimination of my CLL (Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia)
-Gwen, Karen, and my local oncologist as they fight their battles with cancer.

I will update again in about a week to indicate how the final SCCA appointments go and hopefully to celebrate my release from the clinic. I will miss the incredible people here at SCCA and can't express enough my gratitude for the miracles they perform there. However, I am ready to move on to win the next stage (sorry for the Tour de France pun) in my recovery.

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