I am lucky enough to be able to do the next 10 treatments of radiation as outpatient, once a day for the next couple of weeks. That will allow me to go home every day when I'm done as long as my health remains in decent shape (no fevers, infections, etc.). This plan may change, of course, but it will be nice to stay home as long as possible before my next, rigorous regimen of chemo after the radiation is done. So, for now, I'm checked out of Sloan until later this month.

I have completed numerous additional nervous system tests this week and am prepared for brain radition for the next 2-3 weeks (10-15 cycles at 5 per week). The side affects should be largely manageable. The reason for the radiation treatment is to remove a thin film of leukemia that has developed around the brain. Leukemia does very poorly against radiation, so the treatment should be very successful. The dosage I will be receiving is roughly half of someone with brain cancer, so there is very little risk in getting more than the brain can handle. It's just enough radiation to enhance my superpowers.

I will be taking (and already am taking) drugs to shrink and stall the growth of the rest of the cancer until I can proceed with the previously scheduled chemo. Once radiation is done, the high-dose chemo plan will be happening right after that.

My news changes quite a bit these days, but the basics are this: I will be in the hospital for all of September, probably most of October too, getting treatment to prepare for a bone marrow transplant. My brother and sister have been tested, but I am still waiting to see if they are a match. Each has a 25% chance of matching, and the match has entirely to do with white cell matching (as opposed to red cell, like AB+). If they do not match, I will be receiving bone marrow from an unrelated donor pool.

I will be receiving a very heavy dose of chemo and likely doses of radiation (12) to prepare for the transplant. Then I recover in the hospital and at home, followed by the transplant, which will take many weeks in the hospital (mainly due to immune system recovery time).

All treatment is now through Sloan-Kettering, one of the best cancer centers in the country. I have a good room and lots of space compared to NYU, so that's the good news. That's all for now.

I suffered a major setback in my treatments during my most recent round (last week). According to several tests and scans, such as a nuclear medicine scan called a Gallium scan, the cancer shows a recurrence in my bones, meaning that there is now a strain resistant to my current treatment plan. That means that my treatment plan doesn't work anymore, and I will need to consult with my oncologist and several other doctors at Sloan-Kettering (and anywhere else) to determine an alternative approach. I will probably require a bone marrow transplant--details to follow when I know more. While this is bad news, there are still options and other kinds of chemo that could do the trick. This is surprising to me after all of the success up to this point, but considering the size of my tumor when treatment started, it's actually not all that unusual to have difficulty wiping out all of the cancer cells. So, for now we're back to an uncertain place, but it will make for a more interesting made-for-tv movie when all is said and done.