January 2, 2009

Happy New Year, everyone! Thanks for checking up on Tom. Today he had his second bone marrrow biopsy. I was actually able to watch the procedure. It's much more primitive than one would expect. After giving Tom a local anesthesia the doctor uses his own force to stab Tom through the bone with a thick needle. First he "aspirates" out some blood. This is the most painful part for Tom, though it was significantly less painful this time. He then removes the needle. He reinserts the needle with a different device inside of it and then proceeds to jiggle the needle empathically in order to tear some of the bone marrow away from the bone.

Tom was not pleased to be undergoing this procedure once again and proceeded to "grade" the doctor on a curve (in comparison to the doctor who performed the first biopsy) at each step of the procedure. In the end he gave this doctor (Olsen) an A and the previous doctor (Mena) a B. As you can tell, everything is still a competition to Tom.

We should hear about the results on Tuesday. The doctor intuitively feels that Leukemia is not a likely diagnosis. Through some internet research of my own I have found that the course of Tom's illness sounds very similar to something called Hepatitis Associated Aplastic Anemia (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/336/15/1059). I mentioned this to the doctor today and he indicated that this does seem to fit the circumstances. I'm trying not to spend too much time getting ahead of the situation, but this really jumped out as being very similar.

This week has felt a year long to me. I have some how conjured up in my mind a "calm before the storm" mentality that has made me simultaneously sad, restless and exhausted. We have been lying low at home mostly and tried to relax. After all, there's still a chance that this will all resolve on its own and hope is always alive.

Thanks, as always, for your kind prayers and good thoughts, The Highland Park DuBranskys