Diane Jensen: Great weekend, now biopsy day

Monday, September 14, 2015

Great weekend, now biopsy day

We were able to go to Bear Lake this past weekend and enjoy the family,
lake, Love's house and generosity. The weather was no less than spectacular . Everyone had a great time. Lots of fun in the sun and on the paddle board and wave runner. Diane felt so good and had a wonderful time without any health complications. Logan and Sardine Canyons were starting to get into full color dress and some of the reds were breathtaking.

Today we're back at the hospital at 8 am for clinic, blood tests, platelets and bone marrow biopsy a little later. We saw two docs and Dr Ford said the results on the blasts were less than we all had hoped for. Perriferal blood blasts were at 11%. We are to go ahead with the biopsy and see what the bone marrow results say. We will likely know by Friday. In the mean time, the tumor board will discuss on Wednesday what will likely be the path forward. We will be holding off on the chemo at least until Friday, rather than to get chemo side effects that are not resulting in effectiveness.

1 comment:

janericksonSeptember 14, 2015 at 10:02 PM
Picture perfect day! Glad you got to really enjoy it.
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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.