. . . ready, set, go.

It is my hope, by this time, that my news isn't news to those who had subscribed to this blog earlier. I have held off on restarting the blog to allow word of my relapse to spread in a more natural, less-shocking manner. If your old 'subscription' to this blog becomes your method for learning that I am again receiving treatment at Hopkins, I apologize.

So what happened? Well, I had been attempting to ignore or otherwise explain a fair amount of back pain. 2 MRIs at least called into question whether cancer might be to blame though my doctors at Hopkins were not convinced. It wasn't until my platelet levels spontaneously started dropping that Hopkins became nervous. And when Hopkins is nervous, I'm nervous.Two weeks of fairly dramatic drops in platelet levels prompted an expedited set of blood tests on Friday, March 12th followed by a bone marrow biopsy. A six hour ordeal ended in my learning that my clinically cancer-free ride had come to an end. I was given several hours to return home, talk to the kids, gather my stuff, and return to Hopkins to be admitted the same evening. I have since learned that none of the tests showed that my original Lymphoma returned--my cancer is purely Leukemia now and my marrow was roughly 90% effected. I was shocked by this number but was comforted to learn that a 90% level does not change the difficulty in treatment from a 75% or 50% level.

My path now leads toward a Bone Marrow Transplant. That was always the plan, if I relapsed. So here we go.

I can tell you the following about what is upcoming. Over the next several months things will be moving fairly slowly from my end. I will be in the hospital this time around for about a month even though my chemotherapy ends tomorrow. This is because I will not have my white blood cells kick-started for me like I did under the Hyper CVAD regimen. Instead, my blood counts will bottom out and when I recover suitably I will be allowed to return home. Home I will be (and maybe at work?) for perhaps a month until I am told to return to Hopkins for another round of chemo and final preparations for the Bone Marrow Transplant.

Marla and I have been asked frequently whether people can be tested for being a possible Bone Marrow Donor for me. The answer to this is as follows: The odds of any single person I know being an honest-to-goodness match for me is pretty slim. For that reason, the hospital does not want to spend the administrative time and costs to look individually among my friends for a match. Instead, those who might feel compelled to be a bone marrow donor should seek to get onto the bone marrow registry. Please be aware that if you do this as a means to help me, you will be putting your name on a general registry and may, one day, be a match for someone, and again, odds are that person would not be me.

My take: being a bone marrow donor would be a very noble step and I would be honored by anyone who felt compelled to take that step because of my situation. I also don't think there is any shame in fairly assessing your own willingness to go through what is currently a fairly invasive process, at an undetermined time in the future, to help a complete stranger who may be next door or on the other side of the world. My donor may come from this registry or it may be one of my parents. So clearly, without individuals who are compelled to be on the registry and then who do follow through on that 'commitment' I would have fewer options available to me.

The rest of this process commences with the transplant itself, and the follow up and recovery from that transplant will be a long, involved road.

I have heard many well-wishes, offers for help, and that my family and I are in many thoughts and prayers. It all matters and it all helps--so thank you. Please feel free to monitor the blog and comment at will. For my part, I will try to be open, honest, entertaining, and philosophical as I was before.

I got a lot out of maintaining the blogs the first time around and I believe this will help see me through this process as well . . .

As always, thanks for reading.

--Russ.