Dad has been doing well lately. When we went to visit in August he was getting aroung pretty well and mostly off of the pain meds. This past week however, he went back in the hospital with severe Anemia. This is the way Mom described it: "I just came from the hospital were the Oncologist gave us the diagnosis/result of the biopsy. John's bone marrow is not functioning properly and is only making a small fraction of red and white blood cells and platelets. This is called Myelodysplastic Syndrome or MDS. The doctor gave us a 9 page print out describing this disease, the 3 levels of risk factors, and what can be done about it. You can read all the big words at this link.
In a nutshell, he said John is probably in the intermediate risk group and the fix is a bone marrow transplant from his sister, IF she is an exact match. For the time being we are starting with the "Supportive Care" which you will find just over half way through the above web page. This will involve a lot of monitoring and trips to the doctor's office for injections and possibly blood transfusions. The big PLUS is that this is NOT leukemia and "quality of life" shouldn't suffer too much."
For every bad thing that happens, God finds a way to use it for good. Sometimes it is just really hard to see what that will be, if I am ever even supposed to know. They have both been through so much with his medical history. Please pray with me for their strength, patience, and healing. He is still in the hospital after several days and a few pints of new blood.
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