Good news, and prayers

First, i'm praying for those victims of the school shooting in CT. i am thankful that i spent my morning watching my son's wonderful holiday concert, and not worrying about whether he was alive or not. the devastation of incidents like these are really beyond my comprehension. i hope you'll keep these people in your thoughts as well.

second, i had a quick call with my oncologist today. Dr. Warlick had all good things to discuss. she went to the ASH/hematology conference, and she came back with new information. In particular, there have been studies ongoing that take people with CML who have achieved the highest level of "remission" (i put the word remission in quotes because that's not really how we talk about CML) are removed from the TKI. a chunk of these people have not been off of their TKIs for as long as 5-7 years without a recurrence of symptoms. by this i mean that people who have achieved a zero level of Philadelphia chromosomes in the peripheral blood, and they continue after 5 years to have a zero level. apparently a slightly higher percentage of women have shown success in this.

the awesome part is that Dr. Warlick thinks it is reasonable to consider the possibility that if i could reach zero levels that i might be a candidate for this.

for those who know me well, they may already understand what i'm about to say, those of you don't may not be terribly surprised by this. I'm really goal oriented. i'm willing to do incredibly difficult things to get a good result. i started my own business. i've done many things that require this particular personality type. i willingly tolerate crappy, cruddy, and unpleasant things to get to a goal. so for me, the idea that there is a goal makes me feel more like i can continue on this road. indeed that i would be willing to take higher doses and deal with even worse side effects if the end result *might* be that in 4 years i could go off meds completely. i'm good at doing things with a purpose.

part of what has been truly difficult has been that i have been asked to simply take the meds with no real concept that tomorrow will be better. i take my meds and hope that tomorrow won't be worse most days. in the long term that is simply difficult. i feel like i'm missing out on half my life. but i would be willing to deal with more if i thought that it would give me back my life.