We are happy to report that after meeting with Brad's doctor today, we received wonderful news. After almost a year to the date Brad is 100% donor. March 20th was when he had his bone marrow transplant and this date will now be his "new" birthday (which he also shares with our daughter, Emily.) He is in complete remission (actually called molecular remission) with NO SIGN of cancer. They could not detect any of his DNA and the nasty mutations that he had are gone! Dr. Gregory told us that this is the best that it gets!! Crazy to think that all his DNA is now his donors, which is his baby brother, Aaron. We feel so blessed. We are grinning from ear to ear and we started the celebration already tonight with pizza at Big Bill's with Aaron and his boys! There are a few things that will need to take place in the next months in order to get Brad's immune system retrained. It has to be rebooted for lack of a better word because the donor cells and Brad's cells have been battling it out with his liver. His liver counts have been up and down all year long. He's been on and off steroids and other drugs to try to help the cause. Dr. Gregory has suggested another round of Rituxan, which is administered intravenously, once a week for 4 weeks and 6 hour shifts. This is not chemotherapy but a treatment that attacks the bad cells. Some of you might remember that it is extracted from rat DNA. Brad was a bit reluctant and Dr. Gregory gave him a few weeks to think about it, but I am pretty confident he will do it and then she said he will be good as new. He is suffering from GVH, Graph vs. Host, and has a little rash and is terribly itchy, but these are small problems that will be fixed with Lidex and as time goes on will hopefully fade. He has been quite dizzy for many weeks now and he thought it was either the cancer or the drugs. We were happy to learn that it was simply fluid in his ears! He just has a regular common head cold. Netti-pot treatments at home should take care of that. He also has to get all new immunizations, which I think is cute. Just like a little baby boy. :) Brad is elated (as much as Brad can get elated, he's a pretty mellow guy). We are all excited for the future. We cannot go without mentioning our faith in our Heavenly Father. He has heard our prayers and countless others and He has blessed Brad at this time. Our son, Joe (Elder Acker) is serving a full-time church mission in Australia and we feel that his service to his Father in Heaven has blessed our family!!! I emailed his Mission President today with the good news and they delivered the news promptly to him. He was thrilled. Thank you to all our friends, family and acquaintances that have extended their hands to help us and have gone to their knees in prayer on behalf of Brad and our family. WE FELT YOUR PRAYERS!!! Now we move forward with strength, faith, courage, hope, love and all those things that encompass the trials of cancer. We extend a prayer for others that we know and love right now that are battling cancer. Heavenly Father is mindful of you. This we know without a doubt. We love you- Ackers
