Diagnosis: Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). A Journey

George has completed his first regimen of chemotherapy. For seven days, he drove to Philadelphia (about an hour’s drive) to get his infusion of Vidaza. Since I am working at H&R Block during this tax season, he had to go alone for the first time. But, he did great, as I knew he would.

Now we wait for his blood counts to fall, which should start happening next week. Last time he had this regimen, he needed an infusion of platelets and blood, so they will be monitoring his blood counts. When his blood counts fall, once again he will be immunocompromised and vulnerable to infection, so he will be staying at home and away from people.

His blood counts look good right now!

One thing that is crazy is that he starts round two of this cycle on March 16, about 3 weeks from now. Usually, they wait for his counts to recover before starting a second round of chemo, but that is most likely not going to happen. Last time he had this regimen, it took two months for his counts to recover!

We haven’t hear from Dr. Loren regarding her conversation with her colleagues. Will she be leaning towards a DLI or a second transplant? George’s next appointment with her is March 22nd so I guess we will find out then. Meanwhile, I am left to doing my own research on the internet. It has not been much of a comfort, but it has been educational. I typically don’t share my findings with George. (I’m not going to share them with you, either). He needs to keep his optimism and positive, can-do attitude. So, my current state of mind is…..

And so much can go wrong. Patients with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) or myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) who relapse after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT) generally have poor overall survival. That’s all I’m going to day about that.

So, for now…our lives seem pretty normal and I do not take one day for granted. I relish the routine we have of eating dinner on our tv trays while watching our shows in the evening, before George invariably falls asleep in his recliner. Sometimes I just watch him breathing and sleeping peacefully in his chair. I enjoy our morning coffee before he retreats to his home office and I start getting ready to go into work. There is beauty and comfort in the mundane. In the unexciting and normal. In the routine. It is life.