A Brief History of Prior Trips to Leukemia Land

Tim was originally diagnosed with Acute Promylocytic Leukemia (APL) on October 21, 2005. He was treated with a combination of all-trans retinoic acid and danorubicin. His condition was so acute at diagnosis that he was immediately hospitalized. Tim spent about three weeks in the hospital, coming home just before Thanksgiving in 2005. He received outpatient chemotherapy in December 2005 and January 2006, returning to work in late February 2006.

Tim relapsed late in October 2006. He was once again hospitalized for three weeks due to the severity of his condition. Treatment for relasped APL is daily arsenic therapy. Tim needed 50 doses of arsenic to send his leukemia into remission. The final part of his treatment was an autologous stem cell transplant. The transplant, in which Tim received his own stem cells back after massive chemotherapy, occurred in April 2007. The transplant meant another three week stay in the hospital.

The stem cell transplant was supposed to be the end of our trip to leukemia land. Unfortunately, that was not to be.