Sprouting

Tyler is once again sprouting hair!  It's just in time for the weather to start turning colder, so I am happy that he will have the little extra bit of insulation.  It seems strange that he has had facial hair throughout, but the chemo does make him lose the hair on top of his head...

In any case, I hadn't posted a picture in a long time so I thought I would share his handsome face with friends and family again.  :)

We are still enjoying the good news from last week and hope that his blood test results will continue to stay positive.  If he can just coast long enough for the Ariad trial to open up (and convince them to take him on), then we have a shot at a new drug.

As Ariad has shown successful results for many patients who have disease that was resistant to the other drugs or just never reached a long term remission.  The press release referenced above says:

"A complete hematologic response (CHR) was observed in 85 percent (22 of 26) of chronic phase CML patients evaluable for hematologic response (16 patients entered the study with a baseline CHR). A major hematologic response was observed in five of twelve (42 percent) evaluable patients with accelerated phase, blast phase or Ph+ ALL. "

                                                                     - June 7, 2010 press release on AP24534

I'm hoping that Tyler finally ends up on the good side of those percentages.  Too many times we have had doctors say to us "99% of the time, THIS happens" only to find out that Tyler is again in the 1% where it doesn't work.  Either they are fudging the numbers or his body delights in misbehaving for doctors.  I swear that Tyler is a model patient, following all of his medication schedules and telling the doctors (and nurses) anything they want to know.