Downtown with Dr. T

We drove downtown yesterday morning to meet with Dr. T at Northwestern Memorial. Dr. T is an expert in APL. We anticipate that Tim will have his allogenic bone marrow transplant at Northwestern Memorial. Dr. T told us that while it is very rare to relapse as Tim has, it is still possible for Tim to achieve a complete and lasting remission this time around. Dr. T and Dr. G (our Evanston oncologist) have agreed on the following course of treatment: five weeks of Monday through Friday arsenic treatments, two weeks off, five additional weeks of Monday through Friday arsenic treatments followed by an allogenic stem cell transplant.

So, if you're keeping track, that means three things. First, we don't have to go into the hospital on weekends for arsenic treatment. (Yeah!) Second, Tim's two weeks off are the week of Christmas and the week of New Year's. (Double Yeah!) Third, the stem cell transplant will probably take place in mid-February. (Sigh.)

We saw Dr. G yesterday afternoon. He told us that Tim's spinal fluid appears to be responding to the methotrexate treatments. He believes that it will be possible to cut back to one methotrexate treatment a week. Tim had steriods before yesterday's methotrexate injection. That seemed to help a lot with his nauseau. We are also cutting back on his ATRA dose to see if that will help with his headaches. We are still working on the nerve pain. Dr. T said to go back to the neurologist for suggestions.