Diane Jensen: Day 18, ...more fevers & changing labs

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Day 18, ...more fevers & changing labs

She fevered and chilled all night. It was rough. This morning the fever was 104.9, 9am. Getting shots but fever persists. She's exhausted and feels crappy, much due to the fever. They did the forearm bump biopsy, right at her bedside. She had me bring her a Keva juice. Seems the fever has broken. Temp is 97.34, 12 noon. She's got her makeup on and sitting in a chair. Has had some Keva juice and is asleep now, all in 15 min. They took out the CVC line, in her room. The team is coming, to take her to surgery to install a PIC line, coming to get her now,1:15 pm. Getting platelets currently. They changed her fungal diagnosis name from yesterday to Tarichosporon, which is more common for patients who have low white counts and immune system problems. She has been adding water weight with all the meds and now they have to get it off. If this edition of the blog seems a little disjointed, it probably is, things have been changing and happening so rapidly today I almost became confused myself, some would say that is normal for me. Now hoping for a better day and night. She has gone to get off some water weight.......

2 comments:

wendy smedleyJanuary 4, 2015 at 12:18 PM
Sending our love to you Diane and your family.
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UnknownJanuary 4, 2015 at 1:22 PM
Diane we love and miss you lots. You are airways in our prayers.
Love Gerrie
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Diane is very thankful for any well wishes, even if she is not able to respond to all of them.

Diane's MDS Diagnosis

The hospital encourages visits when she is home or inpatient. Call first to insure she feels well enough at any particular time for visiting. Her immune system is severely compromised, so we ask you not to visit with young children or if you are ill. Currently she is an outpatient.

Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) is a bone marrow disease much like cancer. If left untreated, it will eventually lead to the failure of the bone marrow (requiring transfusions) or Leukemia.

The only way to prevent this is undergoing a bone marrow transplant. Presently, her blast counts are increasing faster than expected but have not reached the level of Leukemia. Her blood counts are lower now and she has had a transfusion to help with this. She is to proceed with the bone marrow transplant now because of how rapidly the MDS is progressing.

Diane will enter the LDS Hospital's Bone Marrow Transplant Unit on Wednesday, December 17^th. She will undergo alternating rounds of chemotherapy for about 2 weeks. The chemotherapy will kill the blood producing cells, as well as her immune system.

Once the blast counts are reduced enough, then Diane will receive a stem cell (bone marrow) transplant. Diane’s sister, Tracey, is a half match and is to be the stem cell donor. However, effort is still underway to get a full match in time for the transfusion. The purpose of the transplant is to have the healthy stem cells replace the unhealthy ones killed by the chemotherapy (in the bone marrow). Once the transplant is done she will be on medicine to prevent rejection for some time (estimated 6 months to a year).

Mid term bone marrow biopsy coming up on (day 17) Friday, Jan. 2 nd. Find out if more chemo might be needed after the results of that test come back. Then another biopsy about day 35. Transplant could take place around day 42 the doctor said.

At this time (June 30) no transplant is scheduled. The disease became active again about mid June. Her blast numbers increased rapidly within just a weekend. Had they been able to do transplant (June 8) it would NOT have been successful, and she would have gone thru much trama for nothing. She has started another round of chemo aimed at controlling the MDS to lower blast levels.

Both the chemotherapy and the stem cell transfusion will be very hard on Diane. We ask for your prayers of strength and comfort on her behalf.

This site will be updated with Diane’s progress.