Hi Everyone!

Dad is doing really well. The first set of drugs for the transplant (a new immunosuppressive) started on Friday. Dad will be receiving the immunosuppressive drug from Friday plus another immunosuppressive drug (chemotherapy) on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. On Friday
he will receive full body radiation and the transplant. We anticipate that he will be in the hospital for about 24 hours starting on Friday. Then he will come home. Although the time for the actual transplant is short, the transition period is much longer. I don't really understand how long this period is but I think I remember hearing 9 months to a year (more on this in the next update).

I will be flying out on Thursday. We are all very optimistic and Dad is in excellent health. You might be wondering, what is excellent health? Well, Dad has gained back a healthy amount of weight, he is eating well, exercising, working, and reading. The bone marrow test showed no signs of the leukemic blast cells and he is now officially in remission! I'm assuming that your next question is something like, if he's in remission then why does he need the transplant? Although Dad is in excellent health, the leukemia can return at any time. We feel very fortunate that all of the chemotherapy has gone so well but there are no guarantees for the future and the window for when the transplant is a viable option is not very large. So, it was a hard decision to make but Dad (and Mom) have chosen to do the transplant now. We are very supportive of the decision and very happy that we have this opportunity. The bottom line is that a transplant is the only chance for eliminating the leukemia completely.

We really appreciate your support and are looking forward to when Dad can travel again.

Much love,
Dina

ps Ben is keeping us busy by emptying bookshelves and drawers (see
below). I'd like to pretend that he is learning about gravity but I'm
afraid that the gravity experiments will be more destructive. He's not
walking but he's able to get into pretty much anything in the house by
crawling. For those who have asked, Ben turned 9 months on the 16th and
shares Dad's birthday in April.