Me, Dad & Ice Cream!
I wanted to send an update on my dad's condition. My dad went in to meet with the doctor yesterday to discuss his first blood tests since he has been doing intravenous chemo. He has been doing the intravenous chemo for 10 weeks. They have been gauging his protein levels though this whole process. When he was doing oral chemo the doctor was hoping to get my dad's levels below 400. They were originally somewhere around 2000.
A normal person's levels are under 80. The doctor said if he could get his protein levels below 400 he would make a good candidate for a stem-cell regeneration or a bone marrow transplant. At best, his protein levels got down to about 550 before they hiked back up above 1300 when the doctor decided to go to the intravenous chemo. He has been doing this new chemo that not many people have taken, so it was all going to be taking it 1 day at a time and pretty experimental. My dad's doctor is very fact based...believes in science. Whenever my sweet mom would say that she was expecting a miracle, he would kind of frown upon that. So this leads us to yesterday...
My dad met with the doctor. The doctor told my dad that his protein levels were at 139!!!! In 10 weeks! The doctor wasn't quite sure what that means. He definitely wasn't expecting that. This time when my mom said that it was a miracle...HE AGREED! So for now, he continues with the chemo to make sure it stabilizes and doesn't jump back up again. But the doctor said that my dad might not even need a stem-cell regeneration of a bone marrow transplant. So needless to say, it has been a celebration for my family! But we continue to pray that he keeps responding to the chemo. And even though the doctor has said he will never be cancer free because of the type of cancer, we still believe that this is possible.
This is a picture of an ice cream date that my dad and I went on at Superior Dairy the last time I was home. I get to go home on July 5th, so I'm sure we will have another famous ice cream date!
A normal person's levels are under 80. The doctor said if he could get his protein levels below 400 he would make a good candidate for a stem-cell regeneration or a bone marrow transplant. At best, his protein levels got down to about 550 before they hiked back up above 1300 when the doctor decided to go to the intravenous chemo. He has been doing this new chemo that not many people have taken, so it was all going to be taking it 1 day at a time and pretty experimental. My dad's doctor is very fact based...believes in science. Whenever my sweet mom would say that she was expecting a miracle, he would kind of frown upon that. So this leads us to yesterday...
My dad met with the doctor. The doctor told my dad that his protein levels were at 139!!!! In 10 weeks! The doctor wasn't quite sure what that means. He definitely wasn't expecting that. This time when my mom said that it was a miracle...HE AGREED! So for now, he continues with the chemo to make sure it stabilizes and doesn't jump back up again. But the doctor said that my dad might not even need a stem-cell regeneration of a bone marrow transplant. So needless to say, it has been a celebration for my family! But we continue to pray that he keeps responding to the chemo. And even though the doctor has said he will never be cancer free because of the type of cancer, we still believe that this is possible.
This is a picture of an ice cream date that my dad and I went on at Superior Dairy the last time I was home. I get to go home on July 5th, so I'm sure we will have another famous ice cream date!
posted by AJ Fabulous @ 6/22/2005 03:44:00 PM
2 Comments:
At Thursday, June 23, 2005 12:33:00 PM,
GJ said…
Your dad is awesome....and a true testament to living a faithful life. And I LOVE that picture......
At Wednesday, June 29, 2005 1:47:00 PM,
mommy zabs said…
YIPPEE YIPPEE! I'm still rejoicing in this :) Your dad is so cute! You look so much like him! :)
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