Diane Jensen: Tanked up, Dr approved travel

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Tanked up, Dr approved travel

After two days off, Sunday and Monday, yesterday and today she is getting tanked up with blood and platelets. The doctors have approved us to travel to Montana with the test of the family to visit Jeremy, Jordan and the kids. Plans are to be gone for a five day weekend. We plan to go to Holter Lake about 45 minutes from their home, watch kids ride horses, weeny roast around the fire pit, drive the tractor and enjoy the family. Everybody is excited!

The BMT Clinic staff (they are great) have made arrangements with Benefis, the hospital in Great Falls for necessary transfusion needs. We will get there Thursday afternoon for a blood cross match and type and Jeremy can write orders as needed since he works there and has privileges there. He is getting mom pre-admitted and helping set things up. Jordan, family and friends have worked for hours moving our room upstairs, cleaning and organizing. Thanks to all of you for your efforts.

We are excited about going, mom missed out on Bear Lake pretty much and is looking forward to going (early) in the morning. We will be driving with Haline and her two kids. It's 8.5 hours of driving, but not bad with two drivers and plenty of scenery change. There are gorgeous canyons between Butte and Great Falls, some of the prettiest country we've ever seen. It's no wonder Jeremy loves being there with his family.

1 comment:

christiAugust 6, 2015 at 9:17 AM
I am so glad that you get to go!! I hope you have a safe fun trip!! And enjoy!!
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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.