Great Lab Report

Good news!

Debbie got really good news Friday, the 22nd from the Dr. and the lab reports. She is really responding well to treatment and her blood work shows it. For example, her red and white blood cell counts are just below the low normal range. Remember that her hemoglobin count was down to 7.2 in the hospital, and this anemia is one of the disease‘s symptoms. She had the transfusion of 2 units on June 26 and it went up to about 10, whereas 12 to 16 is the normal range. Well, three weeks ago it was up to 11.1, two weeks ago it went up to 11.4, and last Friday had climbed into normal ranges with a 12.4 reading! But here is the exciting count - the abnormal protein band (which was the blood test that tipped us off to Multiple Myeloma on June 9th when it measured 3.9 and you want it to be zero) on July 15 had dropped to 1.3!!!!!! After only 3 weeks of treatment!! The Dr. was pleased as were we. Also the type of MM she has is the IGG which (I think) stands for Immune Gamma Globulins and its count was at 4.7 on June 9. By July 15 it dropped to 1.9! Normal range is 0.6-1.6. So progress is being made, praise be to the Lord.

When we first visited the Dr., he said that four to six months into treatment we should have it under control enough to talk about doing a stem cell transplant. Well, he told us last Friday that it is time to start talking about the pros and cons of a stem cell transplant and get educated so we can make a decision about it. So pray for us to have wisdom in all this. (FYI - A stem cell transplant is the favored form of treatment. It involves harvesting her own immature blood cells, called stem cells, through a process called apheresis (sp?), putting them in cold storage, then giving her a high dose of chemo over three days to kill the cancer, [but it also kills her bone marrow and immune system], giving her lots of antibiotics to prevent infection, and then putting her stem cells back into the blood stream. Amazingly those stem cells set back up in the bone marrow and start producing blood cells again thus restoring one’s health. The Doc says it is 70% effective, but that the MM will come back in a few years. 30% of the time MM comes back quickly, and then one‘s immune system is very debilitated).

Over the weekend we got to spend a lot of time with two of our original 5 mission team families (we all go WAAAAY back to 1977). That was a wonderful time together. On Monday, Debbie got to see and visit with another first cousin from Miami who came in for the funeral of their cousin on Saturday, which Deb was not able to attend. So they got to visit and catch up and enjoy being with one another.

In the past week three different groups of our fellowship have prayed over Debbie for her healing, and we are most grateful. We sensed that God was working in all those sessions, especially the last one.

We go back to do lab work in two days, so hopefully, we will have even more good news then.

Keep praying, you have God’s ear. God is so good!

Duane