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Just found out my grandpa has Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia.
He's 80, and he has been in excellent health. He started experiencing dizzy spells and now he's been diagnosed with cancer.
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He's 80, and he has been in excellent health. He started experiencing dizzy spells and now he's been diagnosed with cancer.
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Cancer is terrible, but Leukemia is not always the worst kind.
I don't know what will happen to your grandad, but if he has always been in excellent health, this actually might not be too hard on him. My uncle (Joan's brother) was diagnosed with Leukemia this year, and he is doing okay. If your grandpa's spleen was not yet out of control at the time of detection, he might do fine. CML has very good drugs.
Here is some information from WebMD, a very reputable site:
A Promising Treatment
Until recently, the only successful treatment of CML was to destroy the patient's bone marrow and then restore blood-cell production by infusing stem cells from the bone marrow of a healthy donor.
But now treatment with the drug imatinib mesylate (Gleevec® also known STI571) appears to be able to cure the disease. This molecule fits into the active site of the ABL protein preventing ATP from binding there. Without ATP as a phosphate donor, the ABL protein cannot phosphorylate its substrate(s). A phase 2 study, found that almost 90% of the CML patients treated with the drug showed no further progression of their disease.
Even if he is not a good candidate for the drug, and even if the Leukemia is or becomes gravely serious, men living to 80 years old in excellent health so far are very fortunate, and one upside of such a diagnosis is that he at least has information and the ability to plan.
I hope everything goes as well as possible for your grandpa, and that whatever it is he has to face that you and your family are able to make him feel how loved and supported he is.
Please know that you as well are loved and supported.
Let me know if I can help with anything. I'm here.
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