Terry Church Terry's Positive Current

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your prayers and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting. 

As most of our family and friends know, Terry had a lump on the side of his neck, that was removed this past November.  The tumor was sent to the pathologist and over the Christmas holiday, we were notified that it came back as Multiple Myeloma. For those of you that aren't familiar with this (we were those people), Myeloma, or Multiple Myeloma is cancer of a certain type of white blood cell called a plasma cell, which is part of your immune system. Myeloma begins in the bone marrow, where blood cells are made.
 
 This particular cancer is usually found in folks that are over 65, so for Terry to have been diagnosed this early was a blessing and a curse. Why do I say a blessing and a curse, well the curse portion is somewhat obvious, but the blessing is that my loving  husband is young and healthy, with no other health problems. Because of this he is able to have a Bone Marrow Transplant, this has been our goal since the diagnosis in December.  We were told by the Oncologist that Terry's treatments would last for 9 - 12 months to prepare his body for the transplant. 

Terry has been receiving oral medications and shots (chemotherapy) for the last 4 months with great success, as we have thankfully watched his numbers drop to almost normal range. We were notified 3 weeks ago that Terry has been approved for an Autologous Stem Cell Transplant, this means Terry will receive his own stem cells. Terry and I will be checking in at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance on Monday May 22 to prepare for the transplant, and this will be our home away from home as we stay there for 4 - 6 weeks.

I will update this page once we are in Seattle and start the transplant journey. Many thanks for all the loving thoughts, kind words and prayers...please keep them coming!