Wednesday 5/13/09
Well, if you’re visiting this site you undoubtedly know that Bonnie has been diagnosed with acute leukemia. We got a call from our family physician on Tuesday evening that Bonnie needed to be checked into Sparrow ASAP because of her white blood cell (WBC) count. Bonnie had a blood draw on Monday, 5/11 due to what we thought was a lingering cold that wasn’t going away. The full results were made known to our doctor Tuesday. The WBC count was 93,000 – normal is 5,000 to 12,000. Sometime Tuesday evening (actually middle of the night) analysis of a blood draw showed the WBC count up to 113,000.

Tuesday evening and today has been a constant parade of physicians, technicians, medications, terminology all flying at us at once – it’s been a whirlwind. Today, Bonnie had a bone marrow biopsy to determine the type of Leukemia and had a triple port surgically put in to eliminate the need for a typical IV and also eliminated the need for continually poking of needles for ongoing blood draws.

This afternoon, Bonnie’s oncology doctor came back and informed us that she has acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). There are two broad categories for acute leukemia and the better category of the two is AML (which is a blessing). However, there are several subcategories of AML as there are in the other main category. These subcategories can be either a good prognosis or bad prognosis, but it appears there are more subcategories in AML that are good prognosis and easily treatable as opposed to not easily treatable.

Bonnie is very fatigued and not eating much and has a long road ahead. Thank you for all your prayers and offers for help. We are so grateful for family and friends and are thankful to God for his faithfulness, even in the storms of life. We will try to update this as often as possible.