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Solace in the in between


Thews40
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As some of you know (based on my other posts) my 19 year old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia about a month ago. She survived bone cancer at 15 and lost her knee, and this was caused by her first chemotherapy that saved her life.

 

Things started off crappy, because when they put in her port (they install a port in her chest to run the chemo through and any other injections she needs) they punctured her lung. Poor kid… that sucked, but she was better in a few days. They ran the first run of chemo and she’s been in the hospital for weeks now.

 

The first bone biopsy was taken last Friday and the meeting to hear the results was scheduled for 7:30 this morning. If the chemo wasn’t working (there was a possibility it wouldn’t as she’s getting some of the same drugs that she had during the first chemo) they would have to try and change things up and be more aggressive. I tried to sleep last night, but didn’t get much. Waiting for results like these is something I pray none of you ever go through. You can tell when the doctor walks in the room what the result is by the look on his face before he says anything.

 

The doctor walked in the room and immediately said, “I have great news!” The leukemia is basically in a remission mode now and the chemo is working as planned… best case scenario. It will come back without a marrow transplant and finding a donor is the next step. She still has no immune system and will be in the hospital until early January, but today was a good day… a very good day. They’ll take another bone sample in two weeks, and if all goes well this may be her only round of leukemia killing chemo, but she’ll have at least one more to kill the existing bone marrow before a transplant can be done.

 

There’s a long road ahead and finding a marrow match is the next big hurdle. If you’re ever asked to be added to the bone marrow donor list in a marrow drive, all it takes is a swab of saliva to be entered into the database. I’ll be added in this process, and if none of us are a match we’ll have to pray we find one… one step at a time, and for insurance reasons none of us (family) has been tested yet.

 

Mallory will come home in early January and we’ll nurse her back to health before the next round. My prayer was answered again today, and I thank you so much for prayers sent… I believe in them. Merry Christmas… I already received the best gift possible… thanks again.

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well, so far so good. if you don't mind my asking, how does a person donate bone marrow?

Thanks again to all of you for the prayers. From what I've been told, a marrow transplant donor gives up the marrow in an operation where they take it out of the hip bones. You have to go under, but are usually home that night and back to normal in a few days. The best case scenario will be my son being a match. Once the marrow is donated, they just put it in the patient and it knows where to go, replacing the marrow that was there. When you take DNA from two parents and make some kids, the split changes everything. I was told a match from my immediate family was as great as looking through the database. I don't know what they look for, but finding a match is difficult (gets harder the more diverse the ethnic background is). Being a donor and having someone use you as a match is a long shot, so it's not like you'd have a 50% of matching someone eventually. If I could give up a little pain to save a life I'd do it without thinking... so would most of us. I don't know why they sorta make it hard to sign up? You actually have to look for a hospital's sponsored drive.

 

McNasty/Chargerz... is this something that's done every six months or so?

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McNasty/Chargerz... is this something that's done every six months or so?

The time interval for donor drives is specific to the institution.

 

Continued prayers and good vibes coming your way!! :D

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