Monday, June 1, 2009

Prayers are needed...

Once again friends, I'm calling on you for some big time prayers that are needed. This time it's for my friend Shannon and her dad, Mike. Below I have posted what Shannon has written about her fathers struggles with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, I took this off her Team in Training page, her boyfriend, Blake, Shannon, and our friend Jenny all trained to hike the Grand Canyon to support the research and hopefully someday soon the cure for Leukemia.




Well, as you read her posts you will see that her dad went into remission, unfortunately she got news on Thursday that the Leukemia has returned. The doctors told Mike he could go home and maybe have 2 weeks or he could stay in the hospital, get another round of chemo and have a 10% chance that the chemo will help. He choose to do another round of chemo, he is a fighter and he isn't ready for this horrible thing to take his life from him. He needs your prayers, your thoughts, you kinds words. Shannon is strong but she is hurting... even if she won't let anyone see it, she needs your prayers just as much! If you think about it would you please add them to your prayer list... pray that Mike is in the 10% and the chemo will stop the Leukemia. Pray that Shannon can see God in all of this, that she knows she is not walking this road alone, and that it will all be alright, even when it hurts the most.

Thanks for everything,
KJ



2/8/09
As you may know on September 14, 2008 my father was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. After a couple Chemotherapy attempts to cure him we were unsuccessful because his Leukemia was refractory (won't respond to traditional Chemotherapy methods). From that point my father was sent over to the Bone Marrow Transplant specialists at Main Methodist. We had very little time to find him a Marrow match and before we knew it, he didn't have a match or have time to keep looking. From there he moved forward with a double Umbilical cord blood transplant. He is currently 80 days post transplant. Right now he is experiencing some Graft v. Host problems but hopefully this is just part of the process and he will go on to live a wonderful full life. We should find out in the next few weeks if he has reached remission so please continue to keep him in your prayers!

My dad calls his cancer a divine gift from God. He feels like if he had to go through this in order to positively impact at least one persons life, then it was worth it. Having a personal connection to blood cancers has provided me the opportunity to connect with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) and raise money with thousands of other people to find cures. My dad is my hero, he always has been, please join me in the fight to cure blood cancers by making a donation of any size. It means the world to me, my father and thousands of others.

3/8/09
Can anyone say REMISSION? I know I can! That's right, six months, three intense Chemo treatments and a double cord blood transplant later, we received the preliminary news that my dad has reached remission. I couldn't be more happy for him. This whole experience has been overwhelming.

Even though we have gotten rid of the Leukemia we still have a road ahead of us. He is currently experiencing some Graft v. Host complications. Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is a common complication of allogeneic bone marrow transplantation in which functional immune cells in the transplanted marrow recognize the recipient as "foreign" and mount an immunologic attack
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