My Dad

As most of you know my dad was diagnosed with Mantel Cell Lymphoma about 7 months ago. After about 6 months of really hard chemo therapy, tests have shown that he is cancer free. Yes all of us have done the happy dance!! But his doctors say that his best chance of staying cancer free for as long as possible would be to do a stem cell transplant. This is where they take out his stem cells and freeze them. Next they have him go through some really intense chemo that basically kills everything in your body. This was a hard thing to hear and understand that this is supposed to make him better. But Dad and Mom are very confident in the doctors and know that the doctors know what is best. As his daughter it is very hard to know what is ahead of him and know that there is not much that I can do to make it any easier for him. My dad is the strongest person I know and through all of this has continually impressed me with his strength and amazing faith. So I know he can beat it but it will just be hard to have to see him go through all of it. Sorry back to the explanation. Then they put the frozen stem cells back in and hope that when they regenerate they are cancer free. This is the really simple explanation but that is what lies ahead. But I thought this would be a way to keep all his family and friends updated on how he is doing. So I will try to update this as much as possible.

On Tuesday the doctors called and said that they would like him at the hospital in Salt Lake on Friday so they can start the stem cell retraction. There is a two weeks time between when they take the stem cells and when they start the chemo. So we are hoping he can go do the stem cell retraction and be home over Thanksgiving before he has to start the chemo. But we will have to see how things go. I will keep you posted on how he is doing there as soon as we know.