Great Thanksgiving!

Steve was able to enjoy a great Thanksgiving over the weekend. The weather was beautiful, and he got out a little. It was his first home Thanksgiving since 2 years ago due to being in New York on his mission, and all he cared about was getting some stuffing! He also enjoyed some fun football games.
Steve was able to have his bone marrow test done last Tuesday, November 24, and just got the results back this afternoon. He has measurable cancer cells of .12%. This is a good improvement from what he had before, or .25%, but it is not the coveted 0% or full remission the doctors needed. Therefore, Steve will be going into the hospital at the end of this week for a 5 day stay where they hit him with some very heavy duty chemotherapy. Also, the doctors will be looking at a bone marrow transplant for Steve, and will fill us in later this week about that process.
We are again thankful for such great friends and family and for your love and support, faith & prayers. You all are a great strength to Steve.

On the road again...

Steve is continuing down the road of his leukemia treatment.

He was expecting to be having his big bone marrow test tomorrow, but his blood draw showed that his white blood cell count was too low. That just means that he "gets to have a vacation this week" from any treatment while his body takes time to build up the white blood cells that get knocked down from the chemo therapy. He will try again next week to have the bone marrow test that will determine if he is in complete remission from the cancer cells.

Steve has done well this last 8 weeks with only a few small bumps in the road. He has sucessfully avoided any infections with the help of his two flu shots-regular flu and H1N1. That is a wonderful feat. He had an exciting time two weeks ago when he was getting a transfusion as well as a chemo treatment and he had a big allergic reation to one of those treatments. He turned red from head to toe with a hives rash in a matter of minutes. He was at the hospital, so he was well taken care of. They gave him a few shots of hydrocortisone and it calmed things down and he was able to go home after about 2 hours and not spend the night at the hospital.

Steve will be "vacationing" this week in the sunny northeast bedroom, the family room or the kitchen. He wants to thank everyone for all the love and support, prayers and faith in his behalf from all of you.