2/23/06

Hey everyone....here is a quick update on Jen. Her follow-up treatment at Hopkins went well according to the doctors. The FLAM treatment (an experimental drug with higher doses of chemotherapy) sent her leukemia cell numbers crashing back down. Her doctor said that if he didn't know better, he would have thought she was in remission. Unfortunately, we know this not to be true since her type of leukemia (with FLT-3 gene mutation) does not go into remission. Jen's sister was being re-typed to confirm her as a bone marrow match, and she flies into Baltimore this Sunday for her evaluation prior to the transplant. Jen was discharged on Friday, February 17th. We had an appt with Hopkins' outpatient clinic that Saturday, and sent the rest of the weekend at home. Jen was exhausted, and spent most of her time sleeping. She also became ill to the point that she couldn't keep anything food down, and she developed head congestion and a nasty sounding cough. We headed back to the hospital on Tuesday for a regular follow-up, and there they performed a chest scan, which confirmed that she had fungal pneumonia, and possibly RSV (respiratory virus). Obviously this is not good news with her immune system in such a weakened state. She was re-admitted, and is currently being treated to clear up these problems. Hopefully she can kick these things and get back home before the transplant. Right now, it looks like we will be headed in for the transplant sometime around March 15th. Still not real clear on what to expect after that. I want to thank everyone for the e-mails, gifts, and all your support in general. I will try and pass along news as it becomes available. Also, here is a resource for anyone who is interested...

http://www.marrow.org/PATIENT/aml.html



Love,

Jeremy