From Mike: Bumpy Ride, Things Back on Track
First, the rash. Last time I posted here, a rash had consumed Bonnie, but it has subsided considerably. And the fever is completely gone. So Bonnie's complications were very likely a side effect of one drug that she discontinued several days ago. She looks, feels and sounds **a lot** better. ...All very encouraging.
Now the very latest news on my visit to MN....Isabel, Devon, Bobbi Jo, and I arrived on Tuesday of this week. The flight and visit were both bumpy. We visited with Bonnie in the late afternoon, soon after arriving in Minneapolis.
45 minutes into our visit, out of nowhere, Devon trajectory vomited onto Bonnie's hospital room floor. Not good for a sanitary environment. We made a hasty exit -- down the hall to a bathroom and then to the on-site pharmacy to get some meds, ...where Devon trajectory vomited again on the plush pharmacy carpet. She threw up 4 more times that night. She also had a mild fever. I finally got her cleaned up, calmed down, and to bed, and then started feeling strange myself. Fever. 103 degree temperature. Chills. Did not get to sleep until the fever broke at 4am. Bobbi Jo came to my rescue in the morning. I slept until late afternoon yesterday and have been completely asymptomatic ever since -- 30 hours. Devon is pretty much over hers as well.
For her part, Isabel had a mild fever yesterday, so we abandoned her planned solo visit with Bonnie yesterday. Bobbi Jo (wearing a mask) was the only one to visit with Bonnie yesterday, for obvious reasons. The whole experience has been both a huge let-down and very scary for Bonnie and for all of us.
...Not a good start to a 10 day vacation/visit to see Mommy. It was very strange, but rather ironic, hearing my 2 year-old say at the breakfast table yesterday, "Daddy, I boot" (our word for vomit).
But it was clearly a 24 hour bug, because by today, 48 hours after emphatically making our presence known at U of M, we all passed our screen by the doctors and nurses to see Mommy.
To see Bonnie's face, and the excitement in the girl's eye's is really something to behold. I am kicking myself for not having it on film, but one might understand my apprehension from the previous day.
All of this also coincides with the gravity of today's test results. Bonnie had a bone marrow biopsy today, Day 21, at 10:30an. By the time of our visit in the afternoon we had the results. On the very positive side, there was not a single Leukemia cell observed, in sharp contrast to the small, but meaningful and statistically significant number of cells present when she entered the hospital here a month ago (even though that number was small enough for her to have been deemed in remission). We are very happy about that. What is not fantastic, but is still encouraging, is that pre-cursor cells were definitely found. Not as many as they would have hoped for, but a number consistent with what they expected, given her body's focus on fighting the fever and the rash this past week or more.
They will run a DNA analysis on those pre-cursor cells (which are immature bone marrow cells), to determine whether they are from Bonnie, from stem-cell donor number 1, or from stem-cell donor number 2. We hope they are from one of the stem cell donors, as that would constitute positive evidence of early engraftment of the transplant. They will do another bone marrow biopsy one week from today to check again. In the meantime, they will give her neutrophil (white blood cell) growth factor to speed things along. And they will monitor all her blood counts every day to see if they start to come back, which would indicate engraftment progression. Net, net: we are cautiously optimistic about today's results.
...Looking forward to many more boot-free family visits in the coming days.
Now the very latest news on my visit to MN....Isabel, Devon, Bobbi Jo, and I arrived on Tuesday of this week. The flight and visit were both bumpy. We visited with Bonnie in the late afternoon, soon after arriving in Minneapolis.
45 minutes into our visit, out of nowhere, Devon trajectory vomited onto Bonnie's hospital room floor. Not good for a sanitary environment. We made a hasty exit -- down the hall to a bathroom and then to the on-site pharmacy to get some meds, ...where Devon trajectory vomited again on the plush pharmacy carpet. She threw up 4 more times that night. She also had a mild fever. I finally got her cleaned up, calmed down, and to bed, and then started feeling strange myself. Fever. 103 degree temperature. Chills. Did not get to sleep until the fever broke at 4am. Bobbi Jo came to my rescue in the morning. I slept until late afternoon yesterday and have been completely asymptomatic ever since -- 30 hours. Devon is pretty much over hers as well.
For her part, Isabel had a mild fever yesterday, so we abandoned her planned solo visit with Bonnie yesterday. Bobbi Jo (wearing a mask) was the only one to visit with Bonnie yesterday, for obvious reasons. The whole experience has been both a huge let-down and very scary for Bonnie and for all of us.
...Not a good start to a 10 day vacation/visit to see Mommy. It was very strange, but rather ironic, hearing my 2 year-old say at the breakfast table yesterday, "Daddy, I boot" (our word for vomit).
But it was clearly a 24 hour bug, because by today, 48 hours after emphatically making our presence known at U of M, we all passed our screen by the doctors and nurses to see Mommy.
To see Bonnie's face, and the excitement in the girl's eye's is really something to behold. I am kicking myself for not having it on film, but one might understand my apprehension from the previous day.
All of this also coincides with the gravity of today's test results. Bonnie had a bone marrow biopsy today, Day 21, at 10:30an. By the time of our visit in the afternoon we had the results. On the very positive side, there was not a single Leukemia cell observed, in sharp contrast to the small, but meaningful and statistically significant number of cells present when she entered the hospital here a month ago (even though that number was small enough for her to have been deemed in remission). We are very happy about that. What is not fantastic, but is still encouraging, is that pre-cursor cells were definitely found. Not as many as they would have hoped for, but a number consistent with what they expected, given her body's focus on fighting the fever and the rash this past week or more.
They will run a DNA analysis on those pre-cursor cells (which are immature bone marrow cells), to determine whether they are from Bonnie, from stem-cell donor number 1, or from stem-cell donor number 2. We hope they are from one of the stem cell donors, as that would constitute positive evidence of early engraftment of the transplant. They will do another bone marrow biopsy one week from today to check again. In the meantime, they will give her neutrophil (white blood cell) growth factor to speed things along. And they will monitor all her blood counts every day to see if they start to come back, which would indicate engraftment progression. Net, net: we are cautiously optimistic about today's results.
...Looking forward to many more boot-free family visits in the coming days.
posted by gbiddle616 at Thursday, August 25, 2005
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