Entry for May 10

Last Wednesday, we had another appointment with Dr. McGee. He'd been in Hawaii for 2 weeks, so Tyler had blood tests only those weeks. Our nurse, Debbie, tried to trick Tyler into admitting that he had started playing soccer already. Luckily, Tyler has remained strong against the incredible temptation of our soccer games. We were hopeful that his consistent blood tests over the last month might mean that Tyler is ready for his spleen scan.

The doctor said that Tyler's blood work does indeed look great and he was very pleased that Tyler is still doing well at the higher dose of Gleevec. Next Monday, Ty is scheduled to go in for a more comprehensive blood test that will test for the presence of the abnormal BCR-ABL gene in his bloodstream. If that is negative, then Tyler will go back on the 29th for another bone marrow aspiration. We are delighted to hear that he has made such fantastic progress in such a short time! The fact that he is moving towards bone marrow tests means that he is moving further into remission.

On the downside, we found out that we have to wait for the results of the bone marrow test before he can get his spleen scanned, so he probably has another month before he can play with us. We thank all of you for your prayers, your thoughts, your questions about his progress. Please don't worry that we aren't willing to talk about this. We are just happy that so many people care enough to ask.

On the upside, we spent the weekend in Walla Walla for our second annual "Wallapalooza" festival. Although we played even less soccer this year, it was still fun. We enjoyed their spring release of new wines by visiting many of the wineries in the area. I brought back several bottles of tasty wines and I am looking forward to enjoying them over the next year. I think Tyler's highlight of the weekend was probably the "soccer volleyball" game that they invented. Because the risk of him playing soccer is only the unlikely chance of physical contact causing his spleen to rupture, he was able to play volleyball with several of the other guys. They played until long after dark, so it must have been pretty fun. I sat inside and ate everybody else's dinner while he was playing, so I'll probably be twice my size next time you see us. :)

Thanks again for everything! Hopefully Tyler will post his own thoughts soon about last week's appointment and then we hope to have good news for you next week after the BCR-ABL test.

Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms out there!

Mandy