Kimberly

Kim was diagnosed with AML Leukemia on July 22, 2009, just after she finished high school. She'd been feeling well, just showing a few bruises when she went to Primary Childrens Medical Center for a heart surgery to fix a relatively minor condition she's had since she was born. A blood test before the surgery showed that her blood had been completely taken over by the cancer. They admitted her that day and began treatment right away. She went through five long rounds of chemotherapy, doing relatively well, with the exception of one infection that led to a very scary stay in the Pediatric ICU. She spent almost all of that time in the hospital, with just a few breaks to go home. By the end of March 2010 she was allowed to go home for good- officially in remission! She was so excited to finally go to USU Fall semester, and got strait A's in all of her classes! Psychology, Humanities, Family Finance and ANATOMY. Not a week after finals, at a regular check up at PCMC, her blood tests showed that her cancer was back. And thus began round two- Kim's goal was to make it to a bone marrow transplant. We had found a donor, so all that was left was to get her in remission once more. After three rounds of chemotherapy, her body was no longer strong enough to keep fighting, no matter that her spirit was. She will always be with us. 7:48 pm, March 31, 2011

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Finally at Home!

Dear friends and family- sorry for, once again, not posting for a couple of days. Things have been very crazy- but nice, this week.
As you know, it looked like Kim would still not be able to come home for a while as of Sunday- her ANC (blood count for her immune cells) was still far too low. However, Monday afternoon they threw us for a loop by deciding to send her home anyway- that evening! There was so much still to do to get ready for her arrival: more last minute cleaning, a few welcome signs, etc. They also had to pick up the prescriptions she will have to take while she is away from the hospital, contact the home-health care service that will be helping us while she is here, and pack up her entire room and stuff it in mom's car!
As glad as I am to have her back, I was really sort of worried that they were sending her home so soon- her counts were still just abvove zero... which means virtually no immune system. And, try though we might, our house is just not the sanitary enviroment that her hospital room was.
The deal was that Kim could come home, to the care of family and the home-healthcare nurses, until her counts become high enough for her to start chemo again. Then she will go back to PCMC for round 2.
The main thing we are looking at is called her ANC- Absolute Neutrophil Count. Basically, her immunity cells. A normal, healthy person has an ANC of about 1500. Kim's was at zero, and when she came home, probably only about 20. Once she gets up to 500, she will be out of the most critical stage, and when she hits 750 she will head back to the hospital. Maybe this will help some of you understand why I am so worried about her, and might come off a little bit overprotective. Things that don't even phase a normal, reasonably healthy person could do horrible damage to her system. Even Kim likes to pretend that's not what's really going on- after all, aside from feeling tired sometimes, she feels fine. But that's how it is. So those of you who would like to see her while she is here- please be careful.
As I said, Kim and Mom drove back Monday night. The most important thing we did was to meet with Carol, our good friend and Kim's main home-healthcare nurse, and go over what things will be like while she is here. She went over being very careful with keeping Kim away from germs, and made sure we had down the procedures for giving Kim her medications while she is here. (Several times a day- one of them a 3x/day IV.)
And so... there you go! A small vacation back to the real world for Kim. She's going to try to mix getting a good taste for "normal life" ... while trying to be careful, because it's really not normal, not quite yet.
Thanks to all of you, as always, for your love and support. I'll be posting more of what Kim gets up to, how she's doing, and some general rules and guidelines. ~~~ Emily
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2 comments:

  1. Todd and CarolAugust 27, 2009 at 4:40 PM

    Emily...have Kim and your Mom tell you the "jello" analogy I shared with them...Carol

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  2. UnknownAugust 27, 2009 at 11:24 PM

    Carol (yes, the Carol who is Kim's home healthcare nurse) said that Kim's immune system is like jello. Right now, it isn't set- it's like liquid. So, anything that touches it can sink into it- "infect" it. But, when it recovers and becomes normal again, it will have "set up" and will be able to deflect germs and the like more easily.
    Thanks, Carol!
    (from Emily, under dad's account)

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