Greetings!

Welcome to our home page. We created this site in 2000 to keep family and friends posted on our progress as Dave underwent a bone marrow transplant in his fight against chronic myelogenous leukemia. Seven years later he is in remission and doing fine.

Our focus now is on finding a cure for leukemia and improving the quality of life for all cancer survivors. Finding a cure means funding for research and clinical trials. Dave is alive today because of the research work supported by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the clinical trials that led to his successful treatment. Please visit the What Can You Do page to learn about what you can do to help out.

The Survivorship issue is our new mission. While going through treatment, and recovering from it, we were focused on getting through it and coming home. Regular trips back to Dana Farber kept us focused on what we were doing. Now those trips are fewer and farther apart and we looking ahead to a different future than what we saw six years ago.

As he reached the fifth year of his survivorship, Dave decided to focus his time and energy on issues regarding cancer survivors -- all cancer survivors. To learn more, please visit his Survivor page.

It has been an incredible journey. We look back and wonder how we did it, but know that we did what we had to do to get through the days. The human spirit is an amazing thing!

Thanks for stopping by. We hope you'll come back soon!

Here I am with "Champ", the local baseball team's mascot. We're at the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Light the Night Walk, an event where participants and cancer survivors walked around carrying lighted balloons. It was a very special event, as several of the teams were walking in my honor. We also walked in memory of those who could not be with us.

CLICK HERE !

ALLISON'S TEAM IN TRAINING PAGE

If you need a smile, check out Dave's Stuff.

The Allison's Take Link at left will give you the full account of Dave's bone marrow transplant and follow up events.

Dave's Story

I was diagnosed with CML (Chronic Myeloid Leukemia) in October, 1999. I thought I was just getting older and weaker (or lazier). I went to the doctor for a physical, got blood test results and a quick referral to the Hematologist at Fletcher Allen Health Care here in Burlington. They sit you down, give you the bad news -- and then you start to feel sick.

I had my bone marrow transplant on March 9th, 2000, in Boston at Brigham & Womens Hospital. Dr. Soiffer of Dana Farber Cancer Institute is my doctor. I was released from the hospital on March 26th and they let me come back home on March 31st. After a few months of isolation at home, I was allowed to go out in public in June and back to work, part-time, in September. I was able to return to work full-time in December.

At my one-year check-up, my bone marrow biopsy still showed signs of the Philadelphia chromosone and, in April I was put into a study group for the new drug, Gleevec. The plan is that the drug will kill off the remaining leukemia cells and allow my new cells to take over. In September 2001, my bone marrow biopsy showed no signs of the leukemia -- I'm in complete cytogenetic remission!!!!!!!

Since then I have continued to be in the study and my dosage has been adjusted from time to time. We've had a couple of "inconclusive" test results, but the important ones keep coming back negative (which is good).

Forty years ago, CML had a 5-year survival rate of zero. Today I'm fortunate to be one of the 50% still alive after 7 years.

We hope this page will be useful to those of you who are also taking the Leukemia and bone marrow transplant journey. Let us know what you think.

Here's an October 1999 picture of me (on the left) with my brother Jon, who is my match (Mom always said we were a lot alike). He has donated some of his bone marrow to help me beat Leukemia.

Thanks Jon, you're the greatest!

Here we are again, March 2001, celebrating my first full year with his bone marrow.