News of Hope Arrives...

Abigail from 1st BMT in 2008

It is happening! her cells are engrafting and it is time to talk discharge! although they are still hoping for graft vs host disease, even if they let her go to family house and monitor her she still has time to get it. and if they don't see any by end of month they will give her more stem cells, since they have extra frozen. they are gonna push this gvhd and i pray she gets some. they think they can give it to her. and depending on the severity (which mild is great) but they have no idea how it will present itself, she might have to be back in hospital. but if she just gets some skin rash or some gut gvhd i think they will be able to treat her outpatient. either way i don't care just as long as she gets it. even though they still say it is a small chance for cure, i believe it is a great chance for cure! because with jesus all things are possible! they will check her to see if any lukemia cells survived. she did get a very potent mixture of chemo and it wiped out all lukemia cells they could see, and the stem cells are going to do their job and wipe out the rest. that is where the gvhd can come in and be helpful at killing the rest of them. but i pray that none of them survived and they were wiped out, never to return! because this little girl deserves to go home to her friends and family and live a normal life! and that is exactly what she will do. will update later

February 3rd, 2012

The very generous donor's cells are in and Abbi is doing great! day + 2 today. sounds weird but i can't wait till she gets graft vs host disease. it is kinda funny we want her to get sick. but it seems to be the only way she will beat this. her hair is falling out, this morning she was a little sad but she is accepting it, grandma Kate came up and cut her hair and cleaned it up some.  Dennis and Blake went home yesterday so Blake could go back to school and Dennis could pay the bills. so this is just a quick update, everything is good, it will take about a week or so for her to en-graft the cells again. i will let you know how it goes. Candice (Mom)

It's a New Day!

Chemo has been done since Sunday and she made it through once again with flying colors! tomorrow cells will arrive and hopefully by evening she will receive them, they have already started one of the gvhd drugs, but at a lower dose and she will get one more drug to prevent gvhd so she doesn't get a horrible case but they won't give her the third drug to prevent it. usually they give three but they will only give two at lower doses. so it could take a couple weeks to get gvhd, they can't let her go until her blood counts are safe enough and if she gets gvhd, which i hope she will, they will keep her longer. so we wait to see what happens. but as of now there are no blasts, which is just in time to get the cells and they will kill the rest of the blasts. pray for just enough gvhd to cure her! Candice (mom)

January 27th Update on Abigail's Treatment for AML

Abbi is on day 8 of chemo and just a couple of days ago started having feelings of nausea and diarrea. they were able to get a stool sample and she has roto virus which they can do nothing for but hydrate her if her diarrea gets worse, but so far it is only once a day. but her tummy hurts and she only gets relief when she lays down, they have her on antibiotics for fevers just to make sure, but the antibiotics can't do anything for the virus she has to pass it on her own, as soon as she gets these stem cells it will help her blood count recover and fight things off better. she has not eaten in about 5 days so they were talking about an ng tube but she had a really bad bloody nose 2 days ago and since this tube goes up her nose they thought it was best not to, also she hates the tube, and i am glad they won't do it. so they will do iv nutrition instead. but that can be harder on her liver. so they will watch her liver counts, also Abbi was fortunate enough to be able to receive a donated I pad 2 from an organization her social workers found on the internet. has not arrived yet but hopefully tomorrow. i hope it gets her mind off feeling crappy, they do give her benadryl and morphine pretty much around the clock now it makes her tummy feel better so she can sleep. and she does not want to get out of bed except to go to the bathroom so she isn't moving around enough or breathing deep enough to clear out the junk in her lungs, i guess you can get tiny parts of lung collapse which she has had before in transplant. but it does clear up and i guess she can blow bubbles to help take deep breaths without even realizing it. we can not wait for Wednesday to come so she can get her stem cells and start to get better. well it is 4 am and i couldn't go back to sleep so i thought i would write an update. now i will try, goodnight or should i say goodmorning.

Abigail begins Chemotherapy...

Abbi had to start the chemo on the 20th because her blasts were continuing to rise even with the hydroxyurea. she is on standard aml frontline therapy. day 2 is down 8 more to go. her blasts have come down from 13000 to 4000. it is working so far and she is doing good, just a little tired but not sick and hopefully that will be minor. she has a nausea patch behind her ear and they give her zofran for nausea as well. but they say the side effects won't start for a couple of days. but i pray hard for mild side effects and for Jesus to protect her vital organs. since the donor has said yes her blood still has to be tested for disease and since 6 months ago she donated her blood for abbi i am sure everything will be fine. the docs don't think their will be a problem. they just had to make a decision so her blasts wouldn't get worse. so usually they know the cells are good to go before they start chemo. we believe everything will go as planned and with Jesus all things are possible and miracles do happen! i will update again soon. (Mom Candice)

The Anonymous Donor Match Agrees to Help Abigail Once Again!

so the donor has agreed to go through with the stem cell collection. thank the lord! her blasts are increasing, they have increased her dose of hydroxyurea to 600mg from 300mg. they want her blasts to stay below 10,000. as of yesterday they were at 8500. they might have to admit her to start a different chemo to lower her blasts till they can figure out when she will get the stem cells. they want to time it just right, the donor has to have her blood checked for disease and that takes a couple days then collect the stem cells. 

i think the whole process i was told could take a couple weeks from the time she said yes till they collect the cells. so when they start this process it is 10 days of very intensive aml chemo then 24 to 48 hrs after chemo is done she will be moved to transplant to infuse the stem cells, then we pray they work their magic. in order to get graft vs host disease, which is what they want her to get, they will only give her a wimpy dose of one drug instead of all 3 to prevent it. transplant docs do not want to give you gvhd, this is a very sensitive situation, but i and we all know that abbi is VERY STRONG! we have only gotten through one victory, that being the donor aggreeing to this, now we have to get through chemo, stem cell infusion, gvhd and all the complications that come along with it. this is gonna be a very difficult road for her, please pray as you have been, pray for the donor cells to finally kill this dreadful disease, so our little girl can be a kid again!

Jan 15, 2012 11:50pm