Waiting on Counts

Just wanted to give a quick update, as well as thank all of you for praying for Jack this past week. We so appreciate your lifting him up and your kind encouragement! The mouth/throat sores are finally all gone! We are really hoping he doesn’t have to go through that again. 

This is one tough treatment plan but he is one tough guy and was ready to tackle round two of this phase today! His platelets were too low to be admitted, though, so he has the week off. We will be headed back to the clinic next week to see if his counts are high enough for more chemo. 

Please pray for no more mouth sores next time, as well as for Charlie, Nikolas, Jayson and JT, who are all fighting the same fight to #JackUpCancer!

Asking for Prayer

We’d really appreciate prayer today for our Jack. He is really suffering from extreme mouth and throat sores from chemotherapy. His counts were high enough and he was admitted on Tuesday last week for a spinal tap and a 24 hour dose of IV chemotherapy. We were thankful to be discharged Thursday evening and Jack wasn’t feeling too bad. Unfortunately, though, he is really being hit hard now by one of the side effects of the chemotherapy-mouth sores that extend down his throat and esophagus. He is tough but it is hard to see him in pain. Thanks for praying.

Good Report

MRD results are negative! We are so very thankful for God’s mercy this morning! Now on to the next phase of chemo to #JackUpCancer.

If Jack’s ANC is high enough, he will have a spinal tap tomorrow morning and then be admitted to Hurley for 3-4 days for a high dose of chemo. As long as his counts stay high enough, he will be admitted like this every other week for the next eight weeks.

Thank you so much for your prayers and encouragement! Please pray with us that:

• Jack’s ANC would be high enough to begin this next phase of treatment 
• He will not have a spinal tap headache
• He will be able to get out of the hospital quickly and with no side effects from the chemo

Still Waiting...

We were hoping to have results back from Jack's MRD today. Unfortunately, the results haven't come in yet, and we probably won't hear until Monday.

Update

For the third straight week, the plan was to try to test Jack's bone marrow. When Jack went in today, our hope was that his ANC would be significantly increased from the last two weeks so that he would actually be able to get the bone marrow test.

Well, the news today was kind of mixed. His ANC had not gone up at all, actually going down a few points. Despite this, the doctors decided it was necessary to proceed with the bone marrow test. We should get results back Friday, and are hoping and praying for an MRD of less than 0.01%.

Slow Going

If it feels like we haven't been writing many updates in recent days, that's because not a whole lot has happened. Each of the last two weeks, Jack was scheduled to get his bone marrow checked, only to have the test postponed because his ANC (a measurement of blood cells) was too low to provide a representative sample. This has been somewhat discouraging for Jack and the rest of us, but we're trying to maintain a positive attitude.

Jack is scheduled to try again Tuesday, so please pray for the following:

1. That his ANC would be sufficient to complete the testing, and
2. That the test would reveal that his minimal residual disease would be less than 0.01%, enabling him to continue on his current path of treatment.

Thanks so much. We'll make sure to update you all after Tuesday's appointment.