Visit to Oncologist

Stefan had his regular check-up this past weekend. His blood was drawn again to determine the blood and platelet counts.

There was some good news and some news we expected but hoped to prolong a bit more. I thought it would be a good idea to show his results below:

His results are shown for the last year in the above image. The bloodcounts looked good, and increased marginally. This was probably due to his medication, and is at the lower ranges of what it should be. The problem is with his platelet count. It reduced from 24 to 19. Normal platelet counts are between 150 and 450, and you can see that it is only 10% of what it should be.

In May the levels were 16 and Stefan recevied a platelet transfer. You can find the news article that was published at that stage. His levels are moving to that level again and is something that would have to be monitored carefully.

Based on the results above our oncologist informed us that he activated the search for a bone marrow donor. So, the time has come and the process has started.

Another preliminary search will be done on the local donor list. We looked at the previous search results and the doctor explained to us some things that we were not aware of. There were six possible matches the last time, of which two will be eliminated immediately due to ethnic incompatability. Of the four that remained, they were all female. He explained to us that statistically it is proven that a transplant has a higher success rate if the donor is the same gender.

Hopefully there are some new donors that have registered since the last search was done because we need a young man this time!!!

He also said that our best chance for a good match would probably come from a fairly young male donor from Germany. We will wait for the new search results and keep the news updated.

Let's all hope and pray for the right donor. Thank you for all your support during this time, we are very positive and know that everything will work out fine.

The Greeff family