[Spridgets] Paul A Update

Peter Shull pdx.pete at verizon.net
Mon Aug 25 06:51:35 MDT 2008


Sorry for the delay in keeping everyone up-to-date but I've been dealing 
with stuff of my own.

Paul is getting "prepped" to go through the second phase of treatment. For a 
short period of time between phases 1 and 2 he was in pretty decent shape, 
relatively speaking. This second phase is not going to be quite so "toxic". 
For a while there he was being given some pretty nasty chemo drugs via IV, 
and you could tell by talking to him that they wiped him out. The good news 
is that this got the number of cancerous cells down to very low levels.

As a side note, he's also about 3 inches shorter than he used to be because 
of a loss in bone density.

The first part of of the second phase consisted of some serious dental work, 
which led to the acquitision of a whole bunch of store-bought teeth. 
Periodontal / gum disease can can invlove significant amounts of bacteria 
and since they were eventually going to suppress his immune system it was 
necessary to take a serious look at his teeth. Right now they are trying to 
"harvest" stem cells for future use. If I have the details right, he's got 
three shunts into the subclavian vein under the collar bone; these shunts 
apparently end up in one of the upper chambers of his heart. Apparently, it 
takes a while to gather enough cells so it might b e a few weeks before that 
part is done. After that, the plan is to totally wipe out his immune system, 
re-introduce the stem cells and let them re-establish normal bone marrow 
function. The bad news is that once the stem cells are re-introduced, he 
might have to spend up to three and a half weeks in "semi-isolation" in the 
hospital for fear of infection. Apparently, they're looking at a Christmas 
target date for the completion of all the treatments, follow-up, etc.

There was a little scare last week that led to an ER trip and a brief 
hospitalization, but he called Sunday and said he was on his way back to his 
GF's.

And that is about all I know. The proceeds from the LOTO donation (thanks 
agaion, folks) went a long way to help with the expenses associated with the 
dental work. Other than that, I'm not sure what the financial picture looks 
like ... I will do some nosing around. 


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