Happy Columbus Day weekend. We had a great weekend celebrating both Joseph and grandma Redmond"s birthday. Joe arrived home on Friday and his first entry into north Andover felt very"weird" after being gone over a month. He's had a fun weekend catching up with family and friends. Today is beautiful and we hope to get in a nice walk to enjoy the summer temperature on this fall day.
My Mom and I are back at the clinic today. I've been going in every 2 days to get red blood and/or platelets. It seems my marrow is not producing at the level my body needs. This could be due to a very slow recovery from the chemo ( which suppresses marrow production), graft v host of the marrow or leukemia (spoiler alert it is not leukemia). Incredibly delighted to report we've ruled out leukemia as the bone marrow biopsy shows no signs of leukemia. Amazing and an answer to our prayers.
We are still going towards an infusion of cells from my original donor. This will help boost the original transplant with the end goal being an entirely new immune system for me. We had hoped for this with the original transplant back in March. However my original, compromised immune system remained active along side my donor system. Sadly my marrow (part me part donor) again began producing leukemia. Another round of chemo got me back to remission and this boost should help my new improved healthy immune system fully take over.
The donor is available and ready to get my team what they need. However he recently had an immunization for yellow fever and the Beth Israel infectious disease folks are weighing in to determine when it is safe for him to donate his stem cells. The plan is for me to have the infusion before the end of the month.
Over the past couple weeks I developed a rash covering my back,stomach,arms and legs. It is gradually clearing up with graft vs host the most likely reason for the rash. GVH can be a very dangerous complication of a transplant. In a nutshell it is my donor immune system attacking my body. However small bouts of gvh can be really good when controlled by medications. It shows my new immune system is hard at work. If I do have gvh of the marrow that too should resolve itself with the help of medications.
So all in all going in a good direction again which is great but oddly overwhelming somehow.
Thanks for checking in and will update you later this week.
Love Maureen
Hi Maureen,
ReplyDeleteGreat to see that Joe is really getting into college life and that Emma is enjoying the challenges of rowing. Birthday greetings to my Aunt Kay!
Lots of positive news here in your latest post so I send good blessings and thoughts to you. Thanks for keeping up with writing the postings as I do keep up with them and think of you daily.
Love and Prayers to you all. Mike Q