THE DIAGNOSIS
(Written by Mark Aug. 6, 2002)
As most of you know, I'm 31 years old, married to Stacey with two beautiful little girls, Kylie 5yrs, and Kenzie 2yrs.  In June of 2001, due to a great job opportunity, we moved from our home town of McPherson, Ks. pop. 17,000 to Phoenix, Az. pop. about 4 million.  At that  time, I was (at least I thought) a healthy 6'2" 209# active person.  I was playing softball on the church team, lifting weights, and working on the new job.  I seemed to be tired a lot, but I was contributing this to the busy schedule I  was keeping.  In September, my boss invited me to climb Camelback Mountain, I had a minor chest cold, but Rick thought the climb would be just the thing to kick it!  I only made it a  little over a fourth of the way up, then my chest started to hurt, and I couldn't breath, so I turned around and went back down to wait for Rick and Kevin.  I figured they would give me a lot of crap for not making it to the top, but they didn't. Thanks guys. I didn't understand at the time what was going on, there were people that looked a lot more out of shape than me, making it up to the top.  Two weeks later, I made it up the backside, which is an easier climb than the front.  But it took me another two weeks to recover. 

In mid September, Stacey and the girls went back to Kansas to visit.  During this time, I became extremely tired and had a few days where I literally woke up in the morning got out of bed moved to the couch and slept all day.  I just figured I was working hard, I missed  the girls etc.

In mid October, I flew to Kansas on a Friday, and the girls and I drove back to Phoenix that weekend.  We got home Sunday night, when I woke up Monday morning, I had a blind spot right in the middle of my left eye.  I had my peripheral vision, but right in the middle was just a black spot.  I rubbed my eye and went to work.

That night it  wasn't any better, so we went to the urgent care center.  The Dr. there diagnosed bleeding in the eye, and sent us to the hospital emergency room where they were supposed to have better tools to make a diagnosis.  After waiting  for five hours, I saw a Dr. who looked in my eye and said he couldn't see anything.  He recommended an eye Dr. for me.  I got in to the Eye Dr. two days later, he looked in my eyes for about two seconds, and said I needed to go to a retinal specialist right away, I asked when, and he told me he was going to make the call to get me in right now!  I went to the specialist and he told me that I had bleeding in both eyes, but it wasn't in the field of vision in the right eye just the left. He recommended a regular  Dr. for  me to go get blood work done.  It took a few days to get an appt. but I finally got in, and they took a lot of blood.  The doc told me they were checking for lots of things, but didn't tell me anything specific.  He told me it would take 10 days to get back all the results.Two days later on Halloween, he called and asked me to come to the hospital.  He told me on the phone that my white blood cell count was 256,000, normal is around 10,000.  This didn't  mean anything to me, I still felt pretty good, I wasn't sick!  I was admitted to the hospital that afternoon.  They took  me up to a room, and a nurse came in to take my vitals, she was wearing a mask, face shield, and rubber gloves.  Now I'm starting to get a little worried.  A second nurse came in wearing the same thing.  I asked this one what was going on "am I contagious or what?"  and she says, "Nobody's told you?"  I told her I had been told nothing, and she said it wasn't her job to tell me, that she would go get the Dr.  Shortly thereafter, the hospital Dr. came without a mask, gloves, or face shield.  She then told me that they suspected I had a form of leukemia, and that the nurses were taking precautions so  as not to infect me with anything.  At ;this time, my biggest concern, was figuring out what channel the D-Backs were playing on. I had known a kid growing up that had leukemia, and he is still alive.  It would just be something to deal with. 

I had called mom earlier and told her about the wbc, and she knew it was  serious, and caught the first plane out. 

More dr.'s came and took a bone marrow biopsy to confirm the diagnosis.   This is done by sticking a needle in to the hip bone and sucking out themarrow.  It's a very unpleasant experience.  Stacey's Aunt Ann came and watched our girls, and Stacey came up to the hospital with me that evening.  We were then visited by an oncologist who told us he was 99% sure I had Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML), a form of blood cancer.  I still wasn't too shook up.  He told us that if your going to have leukemia, this is the one you want to have.  He said 10yrs. or 5yrs. ago the  outlook wouldn't have been good, but now things look really good for this type of leukemia.  Stacey then went home  that night, and found out on the internet that the average  life expectancy for someone with CML is 5 to 7 yrs.   We asked the oncologist about this the next day, and he told us about a "miracle drug" called gleevec that had just come out last May.  It was showing signs of being a cure for CML.  However, the only known cure is a risky procedure called a bone marrow transplant.  I spent seven days in the hospital getting my wbc down, then I returned home and back to work.  I started on the gleevec and it started to control my leukemia, however, it was very expensive.  The  oncologist recommended me to the City of Hope Transplant Center, here in Phoenix.  Stacey and I met with Dr. Schriber, and he spent two hours with us answering our questions and detailing the pros and cons of doing the transplant.   Pro, your cured.  Con, the  procedure could kill me.  If I did the transplant, they would need to find an unrelated donor.  So my choices were stay on gleevec and hope that it works forever and the cancer never becomes resistant to it, or go for the cure and do the transplant.  As we all know, I chose to go for the cure! 

It took them four months to find a donor, but on March 6, 2002  the Center called me and told me that they had found a perfect unrelated matched donor for me.   It couldn't get any better!   We would start treatment (chemo, radiation) on March 25, 2002. 

The weekend before starting, we took the family to Disneyland.  It was the best weekend we've ever had, and I look forward to many more like it!  For me, deciding to do the transplant was an easy thing to do.  I want to know that I'm cured.  I can tell you, it's been a lot harder than I ever  imagined it would be. But, due to a new found faith in God, a great wife and family, and a superb medical staff, I've never regretted my decision!