6 July 2006

July 6

brods,

marlon and i had a hearty talk last night over the phone. so brod mel was in town last week? romy arrived in davao last night and i will join him this morning for a workshop. ched has a project here in the davao region. we are looking at integrating four state university and colleges into one regional university system.

yam was out of the hospital last sunday after 8 days of the 2nd course of chemotherapy. 3 drugs wereadministered to her everyday in addition to anti-vomitting, anti-fungal drugs, etc. just like the previous one, the post chemo period requires antibiotics, blood transfusion and meticulous hospital care to prevent any infection. we expect this on the 7th day after the last chemotreatment. she is in high spirits and usually banters with her siblings.

also during her hospitalization, the doctor mentioned yam's encouraging response to the 1st chemo. Her latest bone marrow aspirate indicates she now produces enough blood. her blood count showed almost normal levels of red blood cells and platelets. her white blood cells remained low though and her karyotypic analysis indicated 2 kinds of probably abnormal cells.

with the positive trend, this 2nd chemotherapy could induce remission. we will then confront the decision on whether or not she undergoes bone marrow transplantation (bmt). this hinges on theavailability of a matched donor and the funds for the procedure. st luke's, national kidney institute and asian hospital and medical center, all in metro manila, are all be capable of this procedure which is said to increase the chances of long-term survival compared to standard treatment methods.

we'd been scouring the net for clues of medical assistance, including bringing her to the US fortreatment. we are praying that such will be granted to us by God should this be the right answer. There appears to be a glimmer of hope as dr ribiero of the st jude's children's hospital in memphis is coming to davao on july 26-28 for a medical outreach. we hope we can get to him and pass the eligibility requirements.

yam's doctor, jeannie ong, has also been very helpful and sympathetic. in this struggle we passed from seeking how our child could survive to living life with a deadlydisease, and conquering it!! we can say for sure that people like you made us think this way and made us cope much easier. adversity, indeed, has its noble purposes and we thank you for helping us appreciate the brighter side of a very difficult situation. god bless you my friends and all the other kind-hearted people.

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