The disease has been controlled

The Doctor’s report yesterday was fairly decent. The disease has been “controlled” by the medication she is taking. That’s the biggest thing. The real danger back in June was that she would progress from where she was (“15% blasts in marrow”) to aggressive “acute myelogenous leukemia” (AML, marked by 20% blasts in the marrow). After her biopsy last week, we found out her blasts level was back down to 4% (and all healthy people have 5%).

There are still anomalies in her blood. Overall, her blood levels are very low (though rising), and a certain kind of white blood cells called “monocytes” are doing some crazy things. The marrow report said “in summary, there is an absolute monocytosis consistent with a myeloproliferative disorder.”

The particular brand of leukemia that Beth has, “chronic myelomonocytic leukemia” (CMML) is marked by both “myelodysplastic” and “myeloproliferative” characteristics. And as I’ve written in the recent past, when the disease is marked by a change from “myelodysplastic” to “myeloproliferative”, at least one study I’ve seen has suggested that this is a not-good progression in the disease.

(Our doctor is not one among those who sees this as a progression — he prefers to look at the actual numbers, and to say, “they are still in the good range”. And I am certainly in a position that I need to trust his understanding of things more than my own.)

The bottom line is that, while all of these movements are traceable and discussion-worthy, the only important thing is that Beth be in “the best condition possible” for the bone marrow transplant, which likely will happen in 6-8 weeks. Again, some think the dysplastic–>proliferative switch is a progression that can hurt her chances in the transplant; but our doctor does not.

On that front, we do not yet have a donor, although there are a half-dozen individuals who match on 10 out of 10 specific DNA markers. These folks are going through additional testing. The reason we only have six is because Beth has an unusual combination on a couple of the more important DNA markers. And among these six, none are “ideal” – in the sense that there is an “ideal” profile of a healthy young male, no tattoos or piercings, who has not had any major diseases in his life.

These folks are older, some of them are older females who have had multiple pregnancies (and the related antigens that can cause some issues).

Our doctor says that we will move ahead with the transplant just as soon as one of these donors is selected. And I’m hoping to place a call today to the “transplant coordinator” at the hospital who is actively working on this to find out what’s happening.