Diane Jensen: Tough night, though day

Friday, October 16, 2015

Tough night, though day

Last night was pretty tough, she didn't feel well at all and was having a particularly difficult time breathing. It was very hard to keep her O2 saturation levels up as she slept. I stayed the night and kept an eye on her. The nurses were in and out all night beginning at 30 min. intervals and working up to 2 hour spaces by 6 am. Not much sleeping was going on, but they had to keep a close eye on her because of the lasix error.

Today, she was extremely weak and had a very difficult time getting to the bathroom duties. Jeremy and his family arrived about 12:30 pm. They surprised us by getting there that early. They had actually left Thursday night and slept in Idaho Falls overnight and drove in early today. It sure was good to have them come. All the kids came to the hospital this afternoon, we visited and talked to the doctor.Diane went down to get a CT Scan but couldn't lay flat long enough-unable to breath, so the scan didn't happen.

Late this afternoon she went down and had a PICC line placed so the medical needs she had could be met with the additional port lines. The kids went home and had a delicious dinner provided by the Augustin family. Thanks a million, it was a life saver. Then the kids came into the hospital to visit and watch Frozen. Addy got onto the bed with Grammy and Grammy immediately fell asleep with the meds she had been given and a grandkid comforting her.......

1 comment:

UnknownOctober 17, 2015 at 10:01 AM
The Lord loves this valiant and elect lady. And we love her too.
Joseph and Suzanne
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

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.