Family proves to be good medicine

Saturday night Mom, Dad, Kathy, Mike, Pam, Megan and Uncle Dean came over bringing dinner and a whole lot of fun to our home on Earl Road. There was Chicken wing dip, chicken wings from the mosquito lounge, kathy's baked ziti and other goodies of all kinds. Fun! Ted wasn't feeling so good and Nathan was out of sorts, too, so they couldn't make it. In the absence of her dad and brother, I think megan enjoyed being the center of attention, though. She was hamming it up! Meg picked out and wrote out a card just for her uncle matt, then when she saw the cards with matt's mug on the front that his dad made for him, she wanted matt's autograph. Cute!
Anyway, all the family around must have made some kind of difference. Matt and Di trekked up to buffalo again Sunday night, and monday there was some big progress in matt's disease. My blood counts have risen quite a bit, even since visiting Dr.Kahn on thursday. White counts up from .75 to 3.06!!! Big jump. The family and the growth factor shots must have combined for some big progress.
Wierdly though, the big progress hasn't meant fast progress in treating my disease. Dr. Baer wants me to come back next monday for a bone marrow biopsy and general checkup. If counts are above 5 at that point, I will start chemo a week later. I asked Dr. Baer if maybe we could start treatment sooner, and it didn't seem likely. She said, "we'll see," but I'm learning what that means: Probably not!
Just seems like I'm spinning my wheels here waiting at home. Want to get headed back on the road to recovery (please forgive the pun!).
In the meantime, we discovered that I have something else wierd about my body: When I came into the clinic they took my vitals, and my pulse was really fast: about 150 beats per minute. It was a little fast the last time I came to the clinic, but on doing an electrocardiogram, Dr. Baer said I had some wierd kind of heart anomaly.
On meeting the cardiologist after an echocardiogram a few hours later, we found out
what exactly I have:Wolff Parkinson White Syndrome. Apparently, I have an extra 'wire" connecting the top of my heart to the bottom of my heart. Apparently this nerve (wire) is like having an extra open circuit, and in the right (unusual) conditions it will repeat the impulse that makes my heart beat, thus making it do doubletime.
The cardiologist basically said I probably would never know about this were it not for my cancer. Great. Then he gave three options for treatment: Do nothing--risky; Minor surgery to "zap" the extra nerve, a little less risky; or take medication to minimize chance of a problem occurring, the least possible risk with the least chance of complications due to treatment for leukemia. He prescribed a pill for me to take twice daily, and I was glad as at least we know what the problem is now.
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