September 11, 2000
Hi All!
The results are in, and the answer is...NO LEUKEMIA!!!!!
Dave sent an e-mail to his doctor today to see if he had gotten the results of the biopsy yet, and when would be a good time to call him to talk about it. The doctor replied that yes, he had gotten the results, and there was no Philadelphia chromosome present. You may remember, the Philadelphia chromosome is the indicator of CML. Two pieces of chromosomes (#9 and #22) break off and attach themselves to the other chromosome. The resulting, shorter #22 is called the Philadelphia chromosome. When the sample of bone and marrow was taken from Dave a couple of weeks ago, that's what they were looking for, and fortunately, didn't find.
What does it all mean? Dave is in remission. His leukemia is gone. There's none left in his body.
We haven't talked to the doctor yet to see where we go from here, but we'll probably go into "maintenance mode", having Dave's blood counts done regularly to keep an eye on things.
We'll probably talk to the doctor tomorrow or Thursday, so we'll let you know what he says.
Hope you're all having a great day!
Allison