Sunday, January 31, 2010

Continued good news

Kay saw Dr. McCroskey last week for her monthly checkup. All continues great. We got her CA-125 (the tumor marker) results back this week and they remain nice and low at 7. She worries that it is up from 6 the last two times, but 6 & 7 are really the same result in this type of thing, i.e. nice and low.

Kay's blood count keeps creeping back toward normal as her bone marrow slowly recovers from the 8 courses of chemotherapy. In a more visible reminder she is recovering she has a full head of hair, short hair, but looks really cute.

We are headed to So. Cal this week to celebrate Fay Colmar's (Kay's mom)birthday. Most of the family is going to be there. Brett is the exception, he has mid-terms the next week and needs to stay at school and work.

I continue to enjoy my medical blog http://drpullen.com It gives me a creative outlet, and has been a blast.

Keep up the prayers of thanks for Kay's continued health, and enjoy the rest of the winter.

Ed

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Low odds, high stakes, we win!

We have been anxiously awaiting the results of the test for the BRCA2 mutation that Kay has that led to her ovarian cancer in our children. We got the results for Jean some time ago, thankfully NO MUTATION in big print on the top of the results sheet. Then yesterday we got the results for Brett. I had been sweating this, because it seemed like the results were taking longer to come back. As a physician I sometimes see that when abnormal results are pending, as often additional time is required to confirm the information. As I opened the envelope my heart was sinking, but i nearly leaped in joy when the same NO MUTATION was on the top of the results page. I took care to confirm that the correct mutation was tested for on both results reports, and then called Brett, Kay and Jean to let them know.

This is really great news, and we feel blessed. As you may recall the odds of each child having the mutation was 50%, so the odds of winning this coin flip twice was only only 25%, not the type of odds you want when facing a concern of this importance. We are happy that in our immediate family this mutation stops here.

On a side note, I am really enjoying my medical blog DrPullen.com. Some of you have been following me there, and I have been having fun.
Prayers of great thanks are in order.
Ed