[marmab]

Thanks so much for your response, Neil. You eloquently stated exactly "where I am at" in trying to decide what to do. I have previously had no blasts or cytogenetic abnormalities -- so far, so good in that regard. My doctor did a BMB yesterday (my fourth), and I needed platelets again -- second time in a week. I will be at the hospital again tomorrow for appointments -- maybe a PRBC transfusion, and a visit to my orthopedic surgeon (I have avascular necrosis in my hip from prednisone use). Preliminary results from the BMB may be available, as well. Also, my hematologist said that he does in fact want to do another round of ATG, and to plan on checking into the hospital tomorrow (!!!) after my appointments, just like that. I guess he feels that we need to try to stop my counts from tanking, which they seem to be doing all of a sudden. And the ATG is worth trying, right now, for this reason. I still need to do some serious thinking about BMT in the future. I am extremely fortunate in that preliminary matching in 6/12 turned up 24,000 potential matches -- yes, that's correct! A record, the doctor said. My siblings were not a match.

So we shall see what happens over the next few weeks...

Thanks again for your intelligent insights.

Marmab