Paul Dowling

On June 28 we took Paul to the ER for severe pain in his shoulders and neck.  Over the last month and a half he had been having headaches and pain off and on, he just thought that he was getting old.  We found out at that time that he has leukemia and is in the final stage of the disease.  Our family of 4 children and I (his wife) were devastated by this news.  Paul is the glue that holds this family together, I could not imagine our life without him, he is my best friend and husband, it is heartbreaking to watch him have to go through this.  He needs a stem cell transplant to survive this disease, luckily he has 10 siblings and has a possibility of being cured if we find a good donor and his body accepts the transplant. The transplant cannot happen until he is in remission. The transplant is a 1 year process, if everything goes without complications, we are so grateful for all of the support and prayers of our many family and friends, please continue to pray!  Thank you so much!




Paul is at home right now on chemo meds that, so far, are working to get his white blood cell count down, the next step is to find the donor, then he will be receiving aggressive chemo and radiation to get is blood count down as low as they can, then he will receive the transplant, he will be hospitalized for 6 weeks, if all goes well, then he will be on home care for another 2 months, 100 days from day of transplant will be very hard on his body, then he will be in the recovery process, which takes another 9 months to start feeling somewhat normal again, as long as we have no complications, then we pray that the cancer does not come back, a second transplant is not likely.




I will keep updates on this page as much as I can.  Thank you all again for the prayers and support!

 - Melanie Dowling