The following Monday, which was April 27th, I started back to work again half-time. It would be a week until I started chemo again. My sister Irene was visiting during that week and we both went to the hospital to get our blood drawn for HLA typing to see if she was a match for me in case I needed a bone marrow transplant. Although it took several weeks to get the results it turned out she did not match.

The first week of May I started consolidation chemo, which consisted of 4 days of high-dose Ara-C again, twice a day, 12 hours apart and mitoxantrone on the first three days. Initially the doctor had told us that I would have to be hospitalized to get the chemo, however after we questioned him a bit he said it would possible to do it as an out-patient. For four days, I went into the doctor's office for Ara-C and mitoxantrone (the first three days) as well as hydration and Zofran for nausea. In the evening a home health nurse would come and administer more Ara-C and Zofran. I also had a syringe of Zofran to mix in juice to take during the day (Zofran was not available in oral form at the time). I thought I might be able to work during that time, but I was mistaken. Although I was able to eat this time, the chemo wore me out so much that most of the time that I was not actually receiving medication I was sleeping.

For the first few days after chemo I felt fairly good. I did not go into work, because of worries about infection. I did a little work from home, though. I was still tired a lot. About a week after the chemo ended my counts started to drop. I required blood transfusions on Friday and then again on Monday, May 18th. This required being admitted to the hospital. Monday I ended up in the hospital overnight because it took much longer then usual to get all the blood and then I had a fever. However by morning the fever had subsided and I could go home.

Things were very chaotic at home. Friday May 23rd we were supposed to close on our new house and move. We had been able to get into the new house to have carpet installed and a few other minor repairs by the 18th. Gretchen and her brother were busy going back and forth between the two houses to move some things. I was only able to get in their way for a short time.

A few hours after leaving the hospital, Tuesday afternoon I spiked another fever and had to be re-admitted to the hospital. The problem turned out to be what is called a peri-rectal abscess, in layman's terms this is a pain in the butt, literally. This required surgery to drain the abscess and IV antibiotics. I ended up being in the hospital for about a week. This time, Gretchen was busy moving and getting our new house ready and did not spend nearly as much time with me in the hospital. Being alone in the hospital was a little scary, but it was mostly lonely and boring.

On Friday, May 22nd we closed on our new house. Since I was still in the hospital, Gretchen and someone from the title company came for me to sign all the documents, a friend who is a notary, notarized them. I hope Gretchen read everything we signed, because I sure did not. Saturday the a number of the guys from the rugby club moved our stuff. I guess it was a painless move, but given the choice I would have rather carried all of our furniture myself from the old house to the new.

Monday, May 25th, Memorial Day, I was still in the hospital. This was also our 6th wedding anniversary. By that evening, my fever was mostly gone, my white count was coming back up and I was only on one antibiotic. Unfortunately my oncologist was off that day, and the doctor on-call, who seemed like a nice guy, but was not an oncologist was not willing to release me. He would have given me a pass to get out for a little while but felt that I needed to come back later that evening for another dose of antibiotic.

We spent our anniversary in the hospital. The nurses somehow managed to find a little cake for us and Gretchen brought in a pizza and we spent a quiet evening watching TV in the hospital room. With very few exceptions, nurses are truly wonderful people.

The next day my doctor came and released me. I went home to our new house. It is always a little strange, waking up in a new place. This was even more so, I had not moved anything and did not know where anything was. Where the furniture was, where things in the kitchen were, anything.

Recovery

I was anxious to be finished with chemotherapy and get back to work. Not so much because I had really important things to do at work, but because I wanted to get my life back to the way it was before I had been diagnosed. A bone marrow biopsy done after the chemotherapy was finished had found no sign of leukemia or of the inversion in chromosome 16. As my doctor so dryly remarked, "This was better than the alternative."

My sister Irene, the M.D. had talked to some other doctors she knew. Some had told her that additional chemotherapy might give me a better chance. I was quite upset at this, as I thought that I had finished all the chemo I was going to need. I sought a second opinion from a doctor recommended by my family doctor. After seeing this doctor, I decided that my own doctor knew what he was talking about and that I did not need more chemo.

Around that time, my brother Ralph and his wife Priscilla visited. We took that opportunity to get him tested as a possible bone marrow donor. Although it took a while to get the results back from the HLA testing it did turn out that he was a perfect match. I found this reassuring although I was sure that I would not need to have a bone marrow transplant.

My recovery from the chemotherapy was fairly quick. I was soon able to return to swimming (once I got my Groshong catheter removed) and riding my bicycle. I got back to work full-time, which was mostly working on my Ph.D. dissertation. My only major complaint at this time was the abscess, it had developed into a fistula and required more out-patient surgery in the summer. It healed very slowly and it was only November when it seemed to have healed fully. This was a real pain in the butt!

In the fall of 1992 I managed to finish my Ph.D. dissertation and I graduated in December, 1992. This was the fulfillment of a dream I had had for a long time. It also ended my college career which had lasted many more years that I would like to have thought. At the beginning of December both Gretchen's family and my family came to my graduation ceremony.

In January, I had my monthly appointment with my Oncologist, on a Wednesday. These had become fairly routine by that point and I was not too worried as I felt very good, better then I had in a long while. I rode my bike the 5 or so miles from my office to the doctor's office. The nurse did her usual thing and drew a couple of tubes of blood and ran it through the machine that did the CBC. After she got the printout she asked if I had been sick recently. I answered "No" and asked her why she had asked. My white count was low and when I looked at it I say that my granulcytes in particular were low and my platelets count had fallen to a little under 150 from its usual place around 200.

Then I saw the doctor, I do not recall him being very concerned, although later I knew he was very concerned. He said that he did not like my white count and wanted to do a biopsy. He did say that a virus can cause a lower white count. We scheduled the biopsy for Monday, 5 days later.

It was a long bike ride back to the office and I do not remember much. I still felt fine but I was worried about relapsing. The next 5 days were not too bad, I think I convinced myself it was a virus. I was anxious to have the biopsy over with.

The following Monday Gretchen and I went