Goodbye, April

Today we received the final results from the LP; there is no sign of any cancer/leukemia!  Praise Jesus!  They are now more comfortable moving forward with CLIPPERS as his diagnosis.

After a rough transition last week, Andy is now feeling fairly stable on his current steroids dose (20mg daily).  There hasn't yet been any increase in symptoms, so we are hopeful.

As we look forward to beginning another month, and yes, we are taking life in small chunks these days, we have a couple of specific areas that you could keep in prayer.

  • Naturally, we continue to pray that he will do well at his current med level.  According to the neurologists and based on what limited information there is about this disease, he's at a steroid level now where he could start to see a recurrence of symptoms.  Let's just see if we can avoid that, shall we?
  • We would also ask for prayer that we would have wisdom as we research next treatment options.  Andy will see the UCSD team in early June and if he is still stable at that time, they will likely recommend that he begin a type of drug called a "steroid sparing agent."  The idea is that the new drug would keep his immune system suppressed long-term and that he could (ideally) wean off of steroids entirely, only having to take them for breakthrough flares.  It sounds great on paper but it will require his body to cooperate, and as you can imagine, the new drugs have their own host of side effects.  It feels a little like "picking our poison."  We will be researching the different possibilities so that we can be as informed as possible when we meet with the doctors.

As always, thanks for taking this ride with us!  We continue to appreciate the support and encouragement!  

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