Bledsoe Battle

We had another appointment with Dr. McGee on Tuesday this week and are pleased to say that Tyler's blood counts are still in the normal range. In fact, the doctor is so pleased with Tyler's progress that we don't have a blood draw or doctor's appointment for a month. While we enjoy all of the wonderful people at our doctor's office, it is nice to be free of the commitment to stop in there every two weeks.

One thing that I found particularly interesting at this visit was Dr. McGee's discussion of the Generation 2 and 3 drugs for CML. While Tyler is responding very well to Gleevec, the drug companies are racing to come out with better and better drugs for this disease. They are currently running clinical trials on the Generation 2 drugs and finding that they work well for folks who were not responsive to Gleevec. As time goes by, we may see patients who have been responsive to Gleevec switching to the newer drugs. While the doctor didn't give us a specific time frame for when he might be making a decision for Tyler to make the switch, he seemed to indicate that it was indeed something we might expect in the next few years. It's hard for me to believe that another drug would be even better for Tyler. He's responded so well to this one and has had so few side effects, that I am hard pressed to imagine a less invasive drug.

On another note, we are thinking about starting a team for Light the Night -- a fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. Anyone can participate in the walk or by offering donations. If you don't receive an invitation in the next few weeks and are interested in participating or contributing, please contact either one of us.

I think we'll be participating in the Greenlake walk on September 15th, but Washington has walks organized in Tulalip (Sept 15), Olympia (Oct 6), and Tacoma (Oct 6). If you live in another state and want to walk, we can look up a walk in your area for you to join and still have you on our team! The walks start at 7pm, with registration an hour before that. The course is about 2.5-3 miles on a flat stretch, so you can be at any fitness level and still participate. Keep your eyes out for more information!

If you already know that you want to participate, please feel free to post a comment on the blog. It'll be fun for us to see that someone actually reads this!!

Thanks,

Mandy