Easter card

I received an Easter card from a patient now residing in Indiana. I haven’t seen her in years.

It was over 20 years ago when she showed up at a New Mexico emergency room and was told it looked like acute leukemia. One person there on this Saturday afternoon called her relative, an infectious disease doctor two doors down, and he suggested me. So, I went to the hospital that evening to look at the blood smear and review the labs. I came up to the room and told her with complete confidence that she had chronic leukemic leukemia (CLL) complicated by autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA), and that I could treat both. I also told her with confidence that the CLL would return someday.

CLL researchers have been dreaming the impossible dream and working tirelessly to change the expectations for CLL. Indeed, the last two decades have changed what was once impossible to something that is possible. Two new classes of targeted agents now hit the disease with greater response than ever before.