Diane Jensen: Great news, thankful. Long road ahead.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Great news, thankful. Long road ahead.

The news is good and Dr Mitchell is pleased with her progress thus far. The blasts results of the bone marrow have come back and they are only 3%,below the threshold of 5%. They start the ball rolling today with the preparatory phase of the bone marrow transplant. Starting today with Vidaza chemo for 7 days and then after this treatment she will be getting the pre transplant tests on heart, lungs, etc. Without knowing yet the day to day itinerary, we are likely looking at the beginning of the transplant to be mid May. That would be an in hospital stay of about 5 weeks. Lots of details we can explore later as we proceed. Thanks, your prayers and faith are working. Smiles all around! The next year won't be a cake walk, but this is where we were hoping to go. We'll have plenty of difficulties and hard times for sure, but we will forge ahead.

11 comments:

Sherry RogersApril 15, 2015 at 8:51 PM
I am SOOO happy to hear this AmaZinG news!!!! I will Continue to keep you in my prayers and hope that all continues to go well. Love you both Diane and Dennis!!!!!!!
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janericksonApril 16, 2015 at 7:21 AM
This is the good news we have been waiting for! Group prayers are going up and will continue as long as it takes! You both are in our thoughts and prayers every day. I put your name in at the temple on Saturday and I'm sure many others have too.
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Penny :)April 16, 2015 at 6:29 PM
We have been fasting & praying for you guys! So happy to hear good news!
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Amber and EverettApril 16, 2015 at 10:53 PM
We at the Taylor house keep grandma Jensen in our prayers 😃 you got this Diane!
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Amber and EverettApril 16, 2015 at 10:54 PM
Those question marks were supposed to be a smiley face
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JennApril 17, 2015 at 7:54 AM
Sad I missed you at Sizzler, but I'm so glad you were able to get "out "! Prayers for a perfect bone marrow match!
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AnonymousApril 17, 2015 at 11:48 AM
Great News. You can do it. You are a very strong woman. You have a strong army of earthly and heavenly angels behind you. Love you
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KathyApril 17, 2015 at 4:36 PM
We'll be praying for you Diane. We miss you guys and think the world of your family:)
(Kathy and Clay)
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UnknownApril 18, 2015 at 1:57 PM
Out prayers are with you. We are fighting colds and so we will stay away until healthy. We love you. You are troopers (Joseph and Suzanne
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gm13m4April 19, 2015 at 1:05 AM
This is great news! As always you are in our thoughts, prayers and on the prayer roll. Keep on keeping on, you wonderful, lovely, loving, courageous, cousin.
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gm13m4April 19, 2015 at 1:06 AM
This is great news! As always you are in our thoughts, prayers and on the prayer roll. Keep on keeping on, you wonderful, lovely, loving, courageous, cousin.
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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.