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

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Test Results and Dates

We got Kim's bone marrow test back last week. It showed a 15% marrow content of possible leukemia cells. However, they were immature cells, and so her doctors put her plans on hold until they could do another marrow test. She would have gone back to the hospital last Friday. Now we are planning on this Friday. She is going down tomorrow for another marrow test.
The marrow test is very important because though her blood is showing no leukemia (which is great,) it could still be in the marrow- where blood is produced. This is the thing I keep talking about in regards to her "progress" and whether or not she will need a marrow transplant. Less than 5% and she won't at all, less than 15% they would only do it if she had a sibling match (which she doesn't) and over 15% is pretty bad- they will pull a donor from the national registry for her. (Once again, that is just how they work. If you are interested, please go to www.marrow.org )
Her regular blood test from last week (the one we do from home and our nurse here sends to the hospital) showed Kim with some great results. Her ANC, or general immunity, was all the way up to 700. (She was usually around 200. Over 500 is great- not even officially immuno-compromised anymore, and they wanted her at about 750 before they would start chemo again.) She was really excited about that- it meant she got to go off of the antibiotic that we had to administer every 8 hours into her IV line. Now she's just on pills. Also, it wasn't so dangerous for her to see people.
However, this week's blood test, today, showed a pretty dramatic drop back to 400. We don't know if they will push her hospital admit date back again, or if they will just have her come in. A LOT will depend on tomorrow's marrow test.

I want to thank all of you once more for your thoughts and prayers. Things are still really hard for Kim, especially now in planning to go back to the hospital, and as she is starting to feel weaker (not getting transfusions, getting that shot of chemo last week, and general dropping counts and too-strenuous activity. Naughty girl.) So thank you all, for helping to take care of us.

I wanted to say a special thank you to Kim's and my student ward. They held a special fast for her this last Sunday. Though they didn't have long to know her before all of this took place in her life, they have been amazingly supportive. Thank you all so much!
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