George had an appointment with Dr. Loren yesterday and we left feeling encouraged again! Our first worry was the drop in George’s chimerism percentages. She told us that it was possibly due to the valgocylovir he was taking to treat the CMV. Good news – no CMV had been detected for the past two weeks, so he can stop taking that medicine, which can also cause his blood counts to drop. So, that was a second sigh of relief because the last lab results we looked at showed his white blood cell counts down to 2.8 (between 4-11 is normal). Before the CMV, he was as high as 5!
I tried to reassure him that the counts were probably dropping because of the meds and sure enough, Dr. Loren confirmed that. So, he stopped taking the valgocyclovir last night and we are hoping to see those counts start to rise again.
More good news – stopping the valgocylovir should help stop his dry heaves! He didn’t have any this morning, so fingers crossed!
Key take aways from the doctor’s visit:
1) George’s chimerism numbers are no need for alarm and do not indicate his transplant is failing (do research on the internet, you WILL come up with a terrifying self-diagnosis!) He will have another test when he goes in for his bone marrow biopsy on October 11.
2) His white blood cells count was most likely lowered by taking valgocyclovir, not anything nefarious.
3) The cytomegalovirus he was being treated for is no longer detected in his blood and he can stop taking valgocylovir and restart his acyclovir.
More good news….I found a dish he really likes (and it has tomatoes in it!)
Dr. Loren told George his numbers look good and he was doing “perfect.” So, we will take that and relax and keep on taking it one day at a time. Thankful. Encouraged.
Diagnosis: Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). A Journey 
Leave a Reply