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The Bombshell
In late December 2021, my husband George finally decided to go and see his doctor. For a couple of weeks at least, he had been finding himself short of breath after performing simple tasks and he had trouble walking around the track on base without getting seriously winded. He thought maybe he had a respiratory…
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It’s been a minute…
Well, I haven’t posted anything in a while because honestly, we have just been in what seems like a holding pattern until George gets his second bone marrow transplant in July. But, now that may be delayed. George started his chemo rounds in February and has now undergone 4 cycles. The last two were with…
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New Chemo
George started his next round of chemotherapy on Monday, April 17. Because the doctors suspected that the lung issues that landed him in the hospital were caused by the chemo med Vidaza that George had been given before, he was given a new drug this time. The new drug is called Dacogen (decitabine). It’s a…
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He’s Home!
After 9 nights in the hospital, George was finally released yesterday! The doctors ran exhaustive tests and cultures and everything came back negative (and they tested for A LOT). No pneumocystis pneumonia (whew!). That left them with the conclusion that George’s lung issues were caused by the chemotherapy drug Vidaza that he had been receiving…
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Making progress!
Today marks one week since George was admitted to the hospital. He has had some tough days at the beginning where he was out of breath walking to the bathroom, coughing fits that brought him to tears and retching, and complete frustration that every day was no better than the last. But a couple of…
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Back on the 14th Floor
George spent his first night in the hospital sleeping on a gurney in a private room in the ED. There was no bed available in the hospital for him, but they were planning to admit him to the bone marrow transplant floor in the Pavilion as soon as a bed became available. On Wednesday, he…
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Back in the Hospital with Pneumonia
After more than a week of coughing without ceasing to the point of gagging and retching, George finally decided something needs to be done NOW. Of course, we had messaged his team at UPenn and they didn’t seem particularly concerned. Had they seen George’s extreme exhaustion, his inability to walk to the front door or…
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A Second Transplant It Is…
Yesterday was George’s birthday. The love of my life turned 59 years old. We celebrated by going to the Perelman Cancer Center at UPenn for George’s scheduled labs, infusion and then appointment with Dr. Loren. When George was getting his labs taken, the nurse said, “Hey, why don’t we just do your infusion now since you’re already back here?” George’s…
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Cycle One Complete
George has completed his first regimen of chemotherapy. For seven days, he drove to Philadelphia (about an hour’s drive) to get his infusion of Vidaza. Since I am working at H&R Block during this tax season, he had to go alone for the first time. But, he did great, as I knew he would. Now…
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“It’s Starting….”
George was sitting in his recliner on Monday evening when he got a notification that his lab results from earlier in the day were available on the UPenn portal. He gets blood drawn every Monday by the nurse from Penn Home infusion that comes to the house. The results showed that his white blood cell…
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BM biopsy results…
….were not what we were hoping for. In addition, the DLI did nothing to boost his chimerism numbers. He only has 2% donor cells in his bone marrow. Today is 223 post transplant, almost 7 months after transplant. We so thought George would be getting his first round of childhood vaccines last month, but that…
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Diagnosis: Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). A Journey 