Jack has been off asp for the past 13 days due to liver enzyme readings which reflect the stock market-unpredictable. His team has been in touch with Astella Pharm and decided that the liver problems are from GVHD and not asp. The team had decreased many of his anti-graft meds as well as his antifungals because they weren't sure what was causing the issues. There was also a worry that his enzymes would be beyound the parameter range for the study and he would have to be taken off the drug. He started getting a rash monday and the skin rashes have been more and more. His oncologist was gone for a week of conference and will be meeting with him tomorrow. As I understand his symptoms are that because the leukemia cells are no longer there, my cells (since I was the donor) is proliferating quite rapidly to fill the vacuum and can cause all this havoc. (Cliff may have to correct me on this). He's still febrile and nauseous every other day or so. His team feels that he will need to be on anti-fungals for about 8 months or so. He needs platelets every M,W,F and blood about every 1-1/2 weeks. He's still extremely fatigued with lying in bed most of the day.

Apparently from the study coordinator, Astella has closed off the study. UCLA has six patients and Jack is doing the best out of all six (which I'm not sure is saying too much, but praise God for that ).

Jack had been blessed to meet a friend name Tim at UCLA on 12/13 on the ward. They were both diagnosed at the same time and they both had a special connection. Jack was devastated to find out about Tim's passing this past Sunday. Tim was a special inspiration to Jack because Tim's strength was so strong. Murphy's law seemed to follow Tim every step of his AML fight from not being able to find a donor, then heart issues from the chemo drugs, then having a donor from Germany, then a long bout with BK virus. Every time something seems to be better, there were setbacks. When Jack couldn't visit Tim, I would take the time to visit on his behalf to try to keep both of their spirits up. I know some of you have lost loved ones to this and my heart goes out to you all.