Tommy Nelms

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. Below is how it all began....

First, my family and I want to say THANK YOU for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. Your outpouring love and support has been phenomenal and we have said repeatedly how blessed and lucky we are to have you all in our lives. Some of you on this email are not aware of what has happened the last 48 hours but we want to give you an update.


Dad hasn’t been feeling good lately and this last week we have been trying to find a diagnosis for Dad’s symptoms with multiple visits to different doctors.　 On Thursday we took Dad for a follow up visit with his hematologist to get the results of his blood test he took on Monday. The doctor stated his bloodwork presented like leukemia and he needed to do a bone marrow biopsy. He then told us it would take an additional 10-14 days to get the test results back. We decided we would not wait for two more weeks to go by without it being properly diagnosed so we took action.


We called Tom Freireich who has been a longtime family friend of ours and his father, Dr. Emil Freireich, was THE Pioneer of treating Leukemia at MD Anderson and around the world. Within five minutes, Tom had called us back with his father on the line. After telling Dr. Freireich all the symptoms dad has had over the last 6 months and where we are today, without hesitation he stated we needed to drive to MD Anderson and get him checked in immediately.


We proceeded to drive to Houston Thursday night and we checked him into the emergency room at 10pm. We were immediately impressed and comforted with the care and attention which confirmed MD Anderson is unparalleled in medicine. MD has been unbelievable and we are so grateful and blessed to be in the best hospital in the world.


Dad had another bone marrow biopsy Friday morning and we received the results within 18 hours of checking him in. (not the 10-14 days as originally expressed in Austin)


Dad has been diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). He is going to start chemo treatment sometime next week. The doctors are still waiting for more genetic testing to come back from the biopsy to determine what type of AML he has and this will dictate what level of chemotherapy he will receive. It was a relief that he was finally diagnosed so we know the course of action we take.


When we told Dad of his diagnosis he took it like a champ. His POSITIVE ATTITUDE is unlike anything we have ever seen. We are very lucky that he is in strong health other than being diagnosed with AML and that he is the most optimistic person we know. We WILL beat this!!

He will be at MD Anderson for the next 30 days being treated. We ask that you pray for complete healing for Senior and strength for our family.　 We are very strong in our faith and believe in the Power of the Prayer!!!!!

As Mom and Dad say, "Tough Times Don’t Last, But Tough People Do!!!"