Diane Jensen: Back at East 8, doctors, blood products

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Back at East 8, doctors, blood products

The xray today showed that the pneumonia was worse than yestetday, so a few more days to work on pneumonia and remove excess fluid. They think the pneumonia is caused by increased fluid retention not by an infection. Good to hear that!

Today she got one unit of platelets, two units of Lasix and by the end of the evening, two units of red cells. In addition she got a couple doses of antibiotics. She also had an IV placed to facilitate all the meds she got today along with the blood products.

She got visits today from several friends along with her doc and PA on the bone marrow team and from infectious disease and pulmonary and their PA's. She is breathing a little better today.

They did get the port-a-cath cleared using TPA, a drug which they injected into it that dissolves clots. So it again flows and draws back blood.

Tonight she is very tired and weak/exhausted from today's regimen and yesterday's ICU visit. She should sleep pretty good tonight as she is asleep already at 9 pm.

3 comments:

patsyOctober 13, 2015 at 8:44 PM
Love you Diane!
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LoriOctober 14, 2015 at 8:03 AM
Love you and praying for you!!
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wendy smedleyOctober 16, 2015 at 6:47 AM
Hang in there
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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.