Help Caleb fight this disease

May of 2019 Caleb was diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML). This was a life changing moment and Caleb being the strong willed person that he is said he was going to fight it with everything he's got! Since then he has been on a daily chemo therapy medication and has dealt with many different side effects.

About 6 months ago Caleb started having severe low back pain that radiated down both legs into his feet. At times it was debilitating and he would spend most of the day laying in bed because the pain was too much. He has seen spine doctors, hip doctors, neurologists, and he has had MRIs from head to toe to try and figure out why he was experiencing so much pain. It's been months of waiting for answers and being bounced around from specialist to specialist. They tried to help control the pain with medication, steroids, etc but it was only a bandaid on a much bigger issue.

During an appointment with his oncologist he was told that his numbers had increased and there was concern his medication was no longer working. His BCR/ABL level which is the number they look at to see what % of his blood is carrying the Philadelphia chromosome which is the cell mutation for his CML. This number had gone from 22% in July to 50% in January. The oncologist feared that his chemo medication he had been taking for the last 3 years was no longer working. So they started him on a new chemo medication that could take up to a month to a month and half to see if this will kill off those cells and bring that number back down.

On Saturday, February, 3rd the pain had gotten to be too much and we called an ambulance to have him taken into the hospital ER. Later that day he was admitted into the hospital to help him control the pain. Upon doing a CAT scan of his body they found he had fluid in his upper lobe of one of his lungs which was pneumonia, and started treatment to try and get rid of it. The pneumonia got worse and he was having more difficulty catching his breath because of the coughing.

On Friday they 10th we got a call that Caleb was being put on a ventilator because his breathing had gotten so bad and he was very critical. That evening he was transferred to the U of M hospital where he has been since. They have had in completely paralyzed and sedated while on the ventilator and has had a bone marrow biopsy and many other tests to see what has been causing the pain, and also to see if his leukemia has progressed.