Friday Feb 27, 2015

What a joy to be home this past week!  Jim and  the kids are taking great care of me and I am thrilled to be getting a little more stamina each day.  While I have been getting plenty of rest, the days have been busy with trips in to the clinic or (even better) activities related to the kids.  Emma has been competing in a regional academic bowl and it was great to see her and her teammates from St Mike;s in action.  She also placed second in the school wide spelling bee at St Mikes.  I am beyond blessed to have this time with my family and friends.

Yesterday I saw my attending physician who  told me I 'looked good - what a difference a week makes'.  Shows what a bit of makeup can do!

One other health note - my heart took a bit of a hit with with chemo treatments (while effective for the leukemia, the chemo regimen used is heart toxic for some patients including me). My heart is not pumping at full efficiency.  Thus it needs to pump more than  normal to keep the blood flowing.  The good news is my heart function and heart rate have improved over the course of the last week.  The first day I went back for a clinic visit, the walk from the garage to the appointment brought by heart-rate to 140!  My heart-rate is much improved but my medical team wants to see even  more improvement moving forward with the transplant.

Right now  the plan for the transplant is pending the availability of a donor.  Another strong match has been located and my team is working on the logistics of confirming the availability of the donor and working on the timing.  Hopefully we'll have a plan in place next week.

So great to see those of you I've been able to connect with this week.

Thanks for checking in!

Love
Maureen

Weekend update Feb 21 / 22

It has been wonderful living again at 112 Tucker farm road these past few days. Both Thursday and Friday I spent most of the days in the clinic but I have  the  Weekend off.  After two months in the hospital I was pretty deconditioned but each day I am getting more  stamina. Jim and th  kids have  been great.  They are  taking wonderful care of me.  It is strange to think I haven't been here since mid  December.

Tomorrow brings me back to the clinic. The plan is for me to continue these visits until I go back to the hospital for  the next phase (either the bone marrow transplant or another round of chemotherapy to keep me in remission.)  The next phase will be determined by the donor and my overall health. As of today the medical team is still working on the donor but has some good prospects. One thing the team is watching with me is my heart rate which has been on the high side. They did several tests on Friday ruling out several potential serious complications. It looks like  the most likely culprit is the deconditioning.

So the plan today is to enjoy a rejuvenating day with the family. I like that plan!

Love  Maureen

Wednesday February 18 - Heading home!

I am being discharged today from the hospital to get some time at home before I come back in for the transplant.  The doctors here are pleased with my overall strength (no arm wrestling with Joseph just yet but I can get myself around) and basic health (I'm well hydrated, counts are strong, no leukemia blasts in my blood work and I am not on antibiotics at the moment).

So except for getting a bit tired after relatively small amounts of activity I am feeling good and absolutely thrilled to be recuperating at home.  Jim and my  sister Kate will be here to spring me shortly.

I don't know how long I will be home.  In general they like to see patients home for a week between discharges like mine and the start of the transplant.  That may be longer or shorter depending on how soon a donor is lined up and how I hold up.

Thanks for checking in and will keep you posted on the adventures at 112 Tucker Farm Road North Andover, MA (here's to hoping Guinness survives the excitement of the homecoming!)

Love
Maureen

Monday February 16

On the heels of the positive bone marrow biopsy results, my white blood cell counts, red blood cell counts and platelets continue to rise.  This is wonderful news as it means my body is growing stronger as I get ready for the transplant.

Unfortunately we have some new uncertainty around the donor. The donor my medical team has been working with is no longer responding to any attempted contact.  For reasons that will be forever unknown to us it appears they are not moving forward as a partner in my transplant.

There are a few backup donor options my medical team is currently exploring. There are a couple promising alternatives.

Thus we are a bit on hold with the timing of the transplant.  The strong hope is we are able to move forward with one of the alternative donors within the next couple weeks but  no dates have  been set.

Back to some good news...my team is working hard to get me home before the transplant. With the delay in the transplant and my improving counts, a trip home this week looks promising. We will likely know by Wednesday.

Look for another update then and many thanks for checking in.

Love
Maureen

Fri - Feb 13 Biopsy Results are in

Well since getting here we've been looking at hitting key milestones.  One was urgent upon admission to reduce my leukemia cells immediately.  The team did beautifully here and my body responded extremely well and I was in a stable place fairly quickly.

The next milestone was getting my leukemia into remission through chemotherapy.  We were not successful with the first round (started the day of my admission).  But with the bone marrow biopsy (results came in long after the 1st round of chemo  was started) done when I first came in, the doctors knew more about the molecular nature of my leukemia and could introduce a more targeted chemo regimen.  With that targeted regimens, this last round of chemo was successful.

My Doctor just informed me that this last bone marrow biopsy showed no leukemia.  This is amazing news and what we have all been praying for.  This news allows us to move forward with a bone marrow transplant (actually an intravenous stem cell transplant).  I'll have more details on transplant dates, etc. in the coming days bur wanted to share this news right away.

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR PRAYERS, FAITH AND SUPPORT

With love and deepest gratitude
Maureen

Tuesday Feb 10, 2015

Another snow day for the kids and I think even they are getting sick of them!  This past weekend was great.  I saw two dear friends on Saturday and the family on Sunday.  Emma is having a great year with basketball and skiing.  Volleyball comes up soon.  She is also busy with Academic Bowl, a game-style competition among several area schools.  Joseph is loving the snow days as Seniors do not need to make them up.  He is having an outstanding season in track even though he pulled his hamstring and is not doing hurdles.  For winter track he is doing hurdles and the 4x2 relay (in a recent race, they were 1/100th of a second off the school record!)

As anticipated for me, this is a quiet week...I did have a couple fevers but they broke on their own.  No  fever today and I feel much better.

The bone marrow biopsy could happen tomorrow but I am waiting on confirmation from the team.

Thanks for checking in and for all your kindness and support

Love Maureen

Friday February 6th

Good day to be inside in Boston as the day started out in single digits!

Feeling pretty good today and looking forward to the weekend which will bring family and friends for visits.

Nothing exciting on the agenda for today - will give an update this weekend

Maureen

Tuesday Feb 3, 2015

A quiet week for me - basically waiting for my marrow and blood counts to recover after the last round of chemo.  Feeling pretty good but a bit fatigued.

Kids are off school again today - Jim sent this picture of the snow pileup on our deck - Yikes!

Thanks for your continued support

Love - Maureen