Category: leukemia
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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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DLI Day
George went in for his DLI (donor leukocyte infusion) on Wednesday, December 14. We were under the impression that the purpose was to boost the percentage of George’s donor cells….to get the low counts back up with more donor cells. However, we were slowly realizing that wasn’t the case. Waiting in the aphaeresis unit, while…
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Next Up: DLI
Donor lymphocyte infusion (or DLI) is the infusion (transfer) of a bone marrow transplant donor’s leukocytes into a recipient’s body. We got a call from Dr. Loren’s office telling George there was a date for the infusion of donor cells – Wednesday, December 14. This was great news! Rachel, the bone marrow transplant coordinator said the…
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Still in Remission!
Yesterday, we got the news we had been waiting and hoping for – no signs of leukemia in the bone marrow! I received this text from George while I was out walking our dog, Chloe – So, what is that chromosomal type stuff results we were waiting for?? Got the results this morning! So much…
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Bone Marrow Biopsy #6
Yesterday, George met with Dr Loren at 9:00 am. She asked if her intern could sit in and we said sure! We were hoping she would be able to explain what caused the drop in George’s chimerism numbers, but she really couldn’t. She said the donor cells may be weak. So, if he gets a…
Diagnosis: Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). A Journey 