Author Archive

Final Post

Friends, This is Austin’s father, Carty. We lost our beautiful son Austin to Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia this past May 8th. This blog was an enormously important source of inspiration and comfort for Austin, many of you have told us it was valuable for you as well. Deb (his mom), Dylan (his brother), and I miss [ READ MORE ]

Wake up, time to die.

With my counts continuing to sit at rock bottom with no change, my doctor decided to perform a bone marrow aspirate and biopsy yesterday. Not typical procedure in a patient still “recovering” from treatment, but given my cryptic leukemia, the fact that there was no detectable blast presence in my blood meant next to nothing. The only real [ READ MORE ]

Waiting

I’ve been an inpatient for four weeks now. In the past I always managed to recover quickly, in a lot of cases I was up and out of the hospital days even weeks before my doctors expected. Not true this time. It may be a testament to how intense my chemotherapy was this time around. [ READ MORE ]

Another Relapse

I’ve been trying for some time to write a post though I’m having a hard time finding the energy. I just want to bring everything up-to-date. A little over three weeks ago I began experiencing bone-pain in my left collar bone. It was not as sudden or intolerable as my previous relapse so I went to see [ READ MORE ]

LTA (Lighter Than Air)

More than one person has asked me to write about my life outside of my illness. No. Or, not really. Thats some other blog. I’ll do highlights though: I drink orange juice out of the container. No, I will not stop. No, it’s not worth discussing. When I’m on the T, I stand in front [ READ MORE ]

Ponatinib

The only option I had left was a phase 2 study being done in a hospital across the street from where I’d been receiving treatment for the last year. I was not the slightest bit excited about meeting new doctors, never mind new hospital administration. When I was first diagnosed the course of chemotherapy I took was [ READ MORE ]

Yeah, F*ck February!

I took a quick glance over my old posts and saw the title “It’s really February?” I remember writing that and being amazed that my body was able to survive through treatment as long as it had… so… now we all know how I feel about that. I’ve lost anything approaching continuity at this point [ READ MORE ]

Relapse

Another 3 months since my last post, that seems to be my schedule for the time being. I always noticed that other bloggers tended to fall off the face of the earth when they get released or begin a less intense phase of treatment. In my case I just didn’t see the use in ruminating [ READ MORE ]

Still Not Dead

Alive Very much alive in fact. More than 4 months since my last post and what seems like a lifetime ago at this point. I was released from the hospital on April 26th 2010, as an outpatient I came back to the hospital every single morning to get checked out. My mother moved into my [ READ MORE ]

Restrictions Apply

It turns out my approximated transplant schedule in my previous post was fairly accurate. I was admitted on Friday, March 19th for an Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant. That evening I had two lines surgically inserted 1) a ‘temporary’ central line on the left of my neck that will remain for my stay here at the hospital [ READ MORE ]

My old view from 765 Feldberg at BIDMC


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- Road to Remission