Friday, May 24, 2013

Birthday--Plus Twelve (The Good News Edition)

The good news of yesterday has now been confirmed and we now officially have a trend. The numbers of yesterday have gone up more. Several things they look at more than quadrupled in 24 hours. Not just that, but, Sandi actually now has a white blood count. This means that her modified stem cells have fully grafted with her body and her immune system is definitely starting up. How strong it will ultimately get we won't know for months as she will have to do the entire childhood immunization schedule at the normal intervals to support her immune system as well as take a number of precautions that most folks don't have to do to avoid a routine illness that could easily kill her.

But, we do now know that everything immune system related has activated and is producing all the various markers at different levels. The doctors involved at Mayo as well as the nurses working with Sandi are absolutely ecstatic. A number of them have been doing this for many, many years and Sandi says that they have never seen a patient doing what she is doing. They are simply amazed. Once again, she is not a normal case at all. This time not being a normal case is a very good thing.

It will be months before we know if this will succeed in holding this particular cancer at bay. But, we do know that things have triggered and a system reboot of her immune system is slowly powering up. All in all, this is the best possible news we could have gotten at this point.

4 comments:

mybillcrider said...

Sounds good!

Kevin R. Tipple said...

Thanks, guys. I just hope it keeps up with no setbacks.

Shalanna said...

Yay!! I see the hand of God here, the results of many prayers. "The fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." I see more improvement in her future! Hooray!

Kevin R. Tipple said...

This was back in May while she was still at Mayo. Since then she has had several setbacks, the most recent being the hospitalization for the breathing problem that has made her oxygen dependent.

At this point, she is far sicker now than she was back in May.