i'm going to be blunt here. even tho i'm new to this board and even quite new to CML, i'm not very inclined to simply accept the random medical advice of a stranger. you seem to be very knowledgeable, but in the end you are not a doctor, and i'm most inclined (in spite of my natural distaste/distrust of doctors) to take the advice of one over that of a non-medical professional.
while my blood count was not as insanely high as a few i have read about, it was quite high, and my spleen (which essentially took up my whole abdominal cavity--going from my ribs, down into my pelvic region, and all the way across my abdomen to several inches past my belly button) was incredibly enlarged. the first doctor to examine me at first insisted i must be about 5 months pregnant.
my major comment is this: a specialist may not do anything different than this onc is doing. BUT: i do not trust this doctor because he put me on hydrea, then took me off, but failed to do blood draws and keep track of what was going on with me for 2 weeks, while there was a delay getting the Gleevec. i cannot see another oncologist here, because there are two others and both refuse to take new hemotological cases. since i must travel, and i'm not interested in driving somewhere, since i'd have to go alone, i'm flying, and flying to NC is not substantially different than flying to texas or denver or minneapolis. if i'm going somewhere else for care, i might as well see a specialist, as see a general onc. who is not substantially better than who i am seeing.
