80. Miami

Date: May 18, 1988
Age: 10

Here is another card for your collection. Yesterday and today were no fun. I spent the whole time in a meeting room. More of the same tomorrow.
Love, Dad

I haven't spoken to my dad since leaving Miami, but I know I should, soon. Just to check in. My anger has subsided a little bit from what happened on Tuesday, but I just feel like this is all going to come back to haunt us again.

In regards to his prognosis, I'm not really certain, and there's a lot of medical information that I don't wholly comprehend. Broken down:

• the blast of chemo he received is keeping the cancer in the background and under control, for now.
• the chemo has also killed just about everything in his body (as expected), which has made him very weak. He has no immune system, and his white blood cell count has been hovering around non-existent for a few weeks now.
  
• once his white blood cell count is at a certain level, he could go to another myeloma center--much like the one in Arkansas --to receive stem cell transplants. He is looking into Sloan-Kettering in Manhattan as well as some place in Washington State.
• He has already had his own stem cells harvested and put back into him, and this has proven to only improve his health on the short term. Something about abnormal genetic markers.
• A better shot at improvement would be to receive someone else's stem cells. A sibling is usually the best/closest match, but unfortunately, that's not the case with his sister. There are four people on the registry who are decent matches for my dad.
• If he receives one of these people's stem cells, there's still a risk of death from the procedure, since no one is an exact match.
• He has only a short window of time to do this procedure--probably no later than May--because the chemo blast will only hold off the cancer for so long.
• If he can't get his white blood cell count up by May, then he can't get the stem cell transplant, and basically, this is his last option.

As for time frames for best case/worst case scenarios, my dad and H were not forthcoming with those numbers. I'm assuming best case: a couple years, and worst case: he may not last to the end of the year. But I am totally basing that on his age, what he's been through already, his current, frail health and failing hope.

Fuck.