Diane Jensen: Today's plan, back to East 8 we hope

Monday, October 12, 2015

Today's plan, back to East 8 we hope

Nothing serious or alarming is showing up in any scans, cultures or ultra sounds. So, the treatment is going to be trying to access and clear the port-a-cath, administer Lasix routinely to resolve excess fluids. Get her back up stairs, today, for a few days and then home. She will have to come to the clinic to get the IV antibiotics daily for a couple weeks. (Quick trips) as well as her routine infusions.

I went to rounds in ICU and they were all very thorough. So the above plan is what they decided on. So far it is going according to plan. Lasix is working. She's back up stair to East 8. We have her showered, fed and into bed. It's now 9:45 and resting comfortably. Today they gave her two units of platelets.

The two nurses from clinic came down to ICU and both were able to access the port-a-cath but neither could get it to draw back. The head nurse of the entire hospital was also able to access it but no draw back for her either. Tomorrow she is going to go down to angiography and see if they can tell why. In any case they can't use it so they had to have an IV line put in so they could administer the antibodies and blood products as required. Please pray with us for a resolution to the port-a-cath problem.

We are hoping for a good night.....grateful for all of your prayers and faith in Dianes behalf. We pray for God's blessing on all of you.

1 comment:

AnonymousOctober 13, 2015 at 2:33 PM
So many changes in the past 48 hours. Thoughts and prayers to both of you! - Dave Gutke
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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.