Hi everyone!

I apologize for the long overdue update. There were just so many different things that happened within the last month, that I wasn’t sure when (or what) to update because things were changing daily.

Because I kept you all waiting for so long, I’ll start with the good news first. My dad is technically in REMISISON! From his last bone marrow biopsy procedure than was done on Friday, March 1st and the bloodwork that has be taken earlier this week, there were ZERO leukemia cells in his body at those points in time.

However, this does not mean that the cancer cell reproduction has completely stopped. My dad will continue to go through chemotherapy treatments to stay on top of things once his aorta inflammation goes down, and his team will be looking into doing a bone marrow transplant in the future.

It is quite a shock for EVERYONE that the remission came so quickly. I am so proud of him for his continuous fight and strength that he has displayed these last two months. My dad really kicked Cancer’s Butt, and like how he always says, he couldn’t have done it without all of your support.

Okay… the happy update is done. If you’d like to be more informed on the previous situations, you can continue reading below for other medical updates that have happened this past month.

2/6 - My dad got released earlier than expected because his cell counts were in the right range. Emma and I think that he literally forced his body to get better, so he can watch her dance with the Burnsville Blazettes for the last time on the following Saturday.

He was then able to do 2 weeks of outpatient care between the Ridges in Burnsville and the UMN Medical Center where he got more chemotherapy treatments, platelet infusions and blood.  He likes to say that he knows 15+ languages now from all the blood transfusions.

2/22 - Thursday morning he started to get a bloody nose again. Although he was feeling well overall, when he was checked into the Ridges they informed him that he had a fever and his cell counts were low, so he needed to be transferred to the UMN Hospital for treatment.

His room was put in isolation for a few days until his WBC count could go back up. They also ran a bajillion tests on him to figure out why his fever kept spiking. He had multiple teams working on his care such as the infectious disease team, rapid response team, rheumatology team, and hematologist team. He continuously tested negative for any respiratory diseases, and there was nothing abnormals in his EKGs or Ultrasounds. 

The Doctors said that it’s not unusual for chemotherapy patients to get fevers that have no clear cause. But they continued to try and find one because they are not able to start the next round of chemotherapy until the fever is completely gone.

At one point, they were thinking my Dad might have some type of lymphoma (in addition to the Leukemia) that was causing the fever. Luckily, that was not the case. The latest test, a PET scan, showed that an aorta inflammation (caused by some type of rheumatic disease) in his chest was causing the fever. They aren’t sure which rheumatic disease exactly or why it happened, but now that they know what it is - they are able to give him steroids to treat it. Once the swelling goes down, he is able to start the next round of chemotherapy again. Fingers crossed that he will be able to attend Emma’s Dance Team Nationals in California this Thursday-Sunday. It’s been something that he’s looked forward to all year, but we all understand if he will have to miss it.

3/7 - It has now been two full of weeks of him being back in the hospital. Unfortunately, he did have to miss a few of Emma’s dance performances during these last two weekends. It’s tough on him, but a few missed performances now is a lot less significant than the possibility of less years of our lives together.

Thank you guys for continuing to join us on this journey. I will keep you updated if there is anymore news.