I can't believe it has been so long since we have updated - sorry, you guys! Josh has moved to yearly bone marrow aspirations so we really don't get as many updates ourselves. He continues to go every three months to have a general blood check but we don't get PCR results at that time usually. He found out today that evidently he will get a PCR test done at the six month mark since his last BMA (which was today) so we should have those results in a couple of weeks. They told us the PCR test is super pricey so they don't do it every time, and also my understanding is that it isn't as accurate with blood as it is with bone marrow.
- April 2011 91.43 %
- July 2011 5.19 %
- October 2011 .09 %
- January 2012 .08%
- April 2012 .02%
- November 2012 less than .01%
- May 2013 .01%
- May 2014 less than .01%
He has gotten a new doctor (Dr. Borthakur) we have already met with a couple of times and we are very happy with him. He is a bit more informative in our meetings and seemed super pleased with Josh's progress. They said his results are exactly what they want to see. So that was exciting. The most thrilling part for us was that his liver counts were all normal today! For the first time in 4 years! The last time we were there they seemed concerned about it and mentioned it could become a problem for him so this was super great news.
He is continuing in his drug trial for Nilotinib, but they told him today that the trial will be closing after getting just 3 more patients. This doesn't mean that the trial ends, but just that they are at capacity and won't allow new patients. This shouldn't change anything for us and we are beyond grateful that we will continue receiving his Tasigna for free.
They other exciting news (that I'm sure all of you know) is that we had another baby! Such a surprise to us because we were pretty certain we were done! Our very first appointment with the doctors at MD Anderson they told us to make sure to use birth control and to not get pregnant. So we took that to heart and made the mental switch to the idea that we were done having babies. We didn't really know if we were going to want anymore four years ago, but I so vividly remember crying and crying knowing that it wouldn't even be a possibility. They didn't have a real reason to advise against it, but they just didn't have enough data to say that it was safe. Understandable since most of the people who have this cancer are well over childbearing age. God had a plan, though, and we had a beautiful baby boy, Owen Reid, in September. We are all in love with him, even though is a handful!
