Orange is for Leukemia Awareness - wristbands

I'm posting the image of the orange wristbands I found and posted a link to in an earlier comment. The color for Leukemia awareness support is orange. Some places list green, but green is for lymphoma. The "Relentless" red wristbands are worn in support of all blood cancers and blood disorders. These orange wristbands have the words "Hope", "Faith", "Courage" and "Strength" debossed around them, interspersed with awareness ribbons. They do not say anything directly about Leukemia; that's what the color refers to. This website does give you the choice to have up to 20 spaces of your own message laser printed on the inside of the band, so the band would then cost $4. Otherwise, it's 'on sale' right now for $2. I checked the hospital gift store, and the color they have is pink, for breast cancer awareness. They have 5 colors [blue, red, green, purple, pink] that say "Search for the cure" or some other such general sentiment. I wasn't interested in those, as they didn't have any orange ones. I had been thinking of seeing if there was a multiple order discount, but that just gets into too many details, so I nixed the idea. I'll place an order, and I'll get some for Stefan, Daniella, and Steve and family, and for my family. If anyone else would like to order these too, I'm passing along the weblink http://www.shanrene.com/page/001/PROD/awareness-wristbands/orange-awareness-wristbands Let me know if anyone finds anything different. -SMK

Fri 9/9, 9pm

Stefan will be getting his 2nd dose of daunorbicin at 9:30pm. I erroneously posted earlier that he will receive this chemo drug via IV; it is not administered via IV, but a nurse injects it with a needle, dosing it in over 15 minutes. The cytarabine is a 24hour IV drip chemo drug.

Steve, Karen and I [and kids] went to see him today. He looked the best he's looked over the last two weeks. His cheeks had color, instead of being a chalky gray, and they weren't as sunken in as they were earlier this week. He was up and about today - he washed up in the bathroom, and even shaved his 5 day stubble [electric razor only]. He ate, he talked, he looked well.

No side effects to the chemo, so far. They push a dose of anti-nausea meds into his IV about half hour before they start the chemo, so apparently that's been helping him.

Thank you for all your calls and concern, for being there when we need you all. It means so much to all of us. -SMK

Our Dearest, Dearest Suzia

Our Dearest, Dearest Suzia……

Your apology is not acceptable because it is totally not necessary!!!!

Good Lord!…in light of everything that you and your family is dealing with,
All of us will be forever indebted to you for doing such a “beyond the call of duty or responsibility” stupendous job in keeping all of us informed, that you are going to be an impossible act to follow, should any one of us find ourselves in similar circumstances….what a commendable example and
standard you have established….we can’t help but to “SALUTE YOU!”

We are happy to hear that your Dad is holding his own under these trying circumstances and please be assured that our love and prayers are with all of you, but foremost with your Dad at all times….words can never do justice to what our hearts are feeling at this moment…so be strong and courageous
As you all have been thus far because God is with all of us at all times and as we know He works in mysterious ways…..He managed to fix your Dad’s heart in time for this challenge, and He will fix this too!

We love and care about all of you guys more than we can ever express…. Big HUGS and KISSES to all of you with all our love from Arizona…

Aunt Krystyna, Uncle Stan, your cousins Mike and Krystyna, our closest friends and the rest of the Hurd/Maca family

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Stage and type of leukemia

The results have shown that Stefan has AML, stage or sub-category M2. I will ask the doctors what that means for him.

9:30am Fri 9/9 - 12 hours of chemo

Daniella called me at 9:30am. Stefan is doing well after his first 12 hours of chemo. At 9:30pm last night, he started two chemo drugs, via IV drip. He started the first stage of treatment, which is called induction therapy, where the goal is achieve remission. His initial treatment is often referred to as 7-3 chemo. He will receive daunorubicin via IV, for 15 minutes, once a day for 3 days. He simultaneously receives a second IV drip, which runs around the clock. The 24 hour drip is cytarabine.

He did okay during the night. No negative side effects yet. He had a full dental xray scan this morning, as they need to monitor his teeth, gums and mouth during chemo. After the 7 full days of chemo, there will be a one week waiting period before his blood will be evaluated to see to what extent the leukemia cells were wiped out - to see if he's in remission. 80% of AML patients go into remission after induction therapy. If he stays in remission longer than 2 years, it will be considered that he's beak leukemia, since most relapses occur in the first 24 months of remission.

Okay, enough medical details. Steve and family and I with my little guy are going to head down to NMH in a half hour. We'll stay in the room briefly, but we're all going so we can get Daniella out of the room to make sure she eats lunch. I am hoping to be the one to stay in the room with Stefan when Daniella goes to lunch, so that I can talk with the doctors when they come to check on Stefan. I will post news when we get back from the hospital.

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I'm sorry for those of you who checked in yesterday afternoon, hoping to find an update, which I didn't post till almost 10pm. I initially was not going to stay downtown till evening, but Jon was able to get home early enough to get the girls from school, and he told me to stay down with Stefan for more than just an hour, so I did. I apologize if you were looking for news and didn't get any till late in the day. --SMK