october workshop came again!

the birthday cake

Wow, today we had another workshop and as usual it was another great meeting for us. In conjunction with Max's birthday on 19th October, we hold a regular meeting and workshop during October every year.

As it always do, this time there were significant numbers of turn out and a third of them were new comers. They really used this workshop to learn more and ask lots of questions during the session with the doctors and I felt so glad they all did.

So guys, see you again in Jan 2009!

meeting my 'old good friend'

I went to the hospital two days ago for my regular follow up apart from getting my final monthly infusion of antibody (IgG). The blood test for CML marker molecule (bcr-abl) result from Singapore that was sent a month ago was also ready for review and I really anxious to know. This result will give me and the doctor an idea what to decide on next. Ideally, traces of CML marker molecule should not be detected after about a year after the transplant. In my case, the last 2 results within a year of my post transplant period was still positive but at the very low value.

So... the result is still positive (it is slightly lower than the previous one). The options (if the blood result still positive) were discussed during last follow up and this time around it was easier for me to understand and just follow the plan, that is to go back and take my 'old good friend' i.e. Glivec again, may be for a couple of year. It was not a hard decision though, since I had used to to it before.