Norman Alley

This Caring Bridge site is being set up so that those who know and love Norm can be kept up to date on his journey through Acute Myeloid Leukemia. I will now try to give you a brief summary of how Norm was diagnosed.. Norm has had afib (aka: atrial fibrillation) for many years and has had two ablation procedures. Since the first of the year, he has gone into afib about once a month, but has always been able to convert by taking Fleconide.  On Monday, May 10, he went into afib again, but was unable to convert. He met with his cardiologist, Dr. Lewis,  on Tuesday May 18.  An EKG was done and Dr. Lewis set up an appointment for Norm to meet with Dr. Wells, who has performed his other ablations.  After meeting with Dr. Wells on Monday, May 24,  it was determined that he needed another heart ablation procedure. Norm showed up for his scheduled heart procedure on Wednesday, June 2 at Swedish Hospital - Cherry Hill campus at 7:30am (check in at 5:30am).  Cael (our son-in-law) works at Cherry Hill, so the morning of the ablation, Norm rode with Cael to work and Cael dropped him off to check in for his surgery.  Due to COVID restrictions, I was not able to be with him, I could only drop him off or pick him up, so we decided Cael would take him. At 7:30am, I received a call from the surgery nurse that Norm’s heart procedure was canceled due to his very low blood count levels. They said he was ready to be picked up and he was scheduled for a bone marrow biopsy and more blood work that afternoon at Swedish Oncology Institute in Issaquah.  On Friday, June 4, we met with Dr. Wahl to get the results of the lab work and biopsy, and Norm was diagnosed with “Acute Myeloid Leukemia”, a rare and very agressive blood cancer.  Dr. Wahl transferred Norm’s care to one of her colleagues, Dr. Raya Mawad, who specializes in this type of cancer,  We met with Dr. Mawad on Monday, June 7.  At that appointment she went over the options for chemotherapy, giving us lots of homework to read, and explained that Norm would be checking into the hospital (Swedish Medical Center - First Hill Campus) very soon for about a month to undergo intensive induction chemotherapy. On Thursday, June 10,  Norm was admitted to Swedish Medical Center - First Hill Campus, 747 Broadway, Room 1257, Seattle, Washington , to begin his chemotherapy treatment.