A journey in life - musings of a doctor, husband, dad, grandad, brother, and friend

In the last 2 weeks, we received much amazing news.  In quick succession, we found out: I am going to receive a bone marrow transplant (actually, it is a stem cell transplant) at Johns Hopkins on March 9. All four of our children were matches for the transplant. The one child I didn't expect to be the donor is..... ?  [Listen to the audioblog post below for who it is!] As previously mentioned, the IDHIFA oral chemotherpay worked miraculously on my MDS and the blast count in my bone marrow dropped below the 5% cut-off for consideration of a bone marrow (or stem cell) transplant. As exciting as this is, the reality of the details of getting the bone marrow transplant have set in: Getting all of the extensive testing (CT scans, Echocardiogram, EKG, PFT's, lab, repeat Bone Marrow Biopsy 😓etc) needs to be done prior to the transplant. Finding a place to live for the 2+ months Jan and I will be in Baltimore (so as to get treatments and checkups at Johns Hopkins on

Here is the podcast for this week Here is a brief review of the chemotherapeutic drug, I'm on, IDHIFA.  Johns Hopkins is reviewing the information on yet another bone marrow biopsy done 1/10/2018.

Yes, I know this post is a little late.  Sorry...    A couple of things happened... Our wonderful nurse practitioner, Sarah Weigand went on maternity leave in mid November.  I've been the only doctor for what is a 3 physician load practice and, well, going it alone has been rather busy!! That is an understatement.  I'm happy to report that Sarah and Rick Chrisman (Sarah's married name) had a beautiful girl, Taylor at 8lb on black Friday!  They're doing great. WE are so excited for Sarah and Rick!  She'll be back at the practice in a little over a week. Another reason is that I had a prolonged case of bronchitis through the holidays, and well, it was tough getting through the last 2-3 weeks!  But, I'm much better now. What else am I thankful for?  First and foremost, my wife, Jan and... ALSO our wonderful family.  See our family picture.  We felt lucky to get all of us together 2 weeks before Christmas at Kristin and Chris' house for a pre-Christmas fa