17 Mar 2007

Hello one and all,

Thank you to all of you who have continued to pray for me and my family. God has heard your prayers and as of Wednesday the diarrhea has gone away and they have started taking me off of all the IV medications.

In addition, as of Friday they took me off of the IV feedings - Praise the Lord!!!! They are trying to get me back on oral medications and cut way back on the steroid. There is talk about trying to bust me out of this place sometime next week. They first need to confirm that my body is absorbing the medications that I am taking via pills.

Oh, yes, there is one more thing, they have now found another blood clot in my right shoulder. They are trying to figure out what to do about it - I hope it doesn't prolong my stay in the hospital.

Well, as we round out the end of my fourth week in the hospital I would ask that you pray for me and my family in the following ways:

• Praise to the Father for stopping my diarrhea


• Praise for the fact that I can now handle oral medications again - at least I think so


• Praise that after 4 weeks of being away from my family and friends I may actually be able to come home


• Praise for those in my church family that are working so hard to help my children


• Pray that this blood clot will either be gone by a miracle of God or at least that it won't prolong my stay in the hospital


• Pray for continued strength for my children in my absence - they both have been so strong and mature about everything.


• Pray for a full recovery soon - I would dearly love to put this entire experience behind me


• Pray for Gene's safe travels back and forth to Madison almost every day.

Thanks for the visitors and cards this week, it was so refreshing.

Just a note, my cleaning lady, the one who prays for me and with me everyday, in spanish (so I don't understand what she says - but it sounds beautiful), gave me a card with a wonderful verse on it

"He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak" Isaiah 40:20.



May God bless you and your family

Cheryl

13 Mar 2007

Hello To All;

Today is the first day of my fourth week in the hospital, the sun is shinning through my window warming me with expectations for a beautiful day. The nurse said it was supposed to get up to 68 degrees today.

So far there has been no real break through on my diarrhea. I have been fortunate and get a day every once in a while where it seems like it is gone. However, the next day it is back in full force. On Monday I had my second infusion of the stem cells. I really hope this helps. The doctors said that sometimes it can take weeks to get Graft Vs Host in check, even then when I go home to much stress can set it off again. They say that I might be here another week or more.

On Sunday I was blessed with a visit from my two wonderful children. It was great seeing them and holding them, as best I could. I have received several wonderful cards, telephone calls and e-mails full of encouragement, prayers and praises. Thank you one and all.

For those of you who think you may have missed some of my "Update" e-mails, you can go to
http://cherylsfight.blogspot.com/
and read all of the past e-mails I have sent out. This is a web site that my brother, Chuck, compiled for me.

Please continue to pray for me in the following areas:

• Praise God for the fact that my Brother, Chuck, has met his fund raising goal and is working to raise funds for other team members in his "Team in Training" challenge.
  
• Praise God for the continued strength of my wonderful children, Michael and Emily.
  
• Praise God for the fact that I am still here to write about my experiences and praise and worship him.
  
• Pray that soon the ills with my body will be healed completely or at least enough for me to go home.
  
• Pray for me that God continues to provide me with mental and spiritual strength to face each day with a positive and thankful attitude.

Love in Christ

Cheryl

7 Mar 2007

Hello from Madison,

I hear that it is still cold outside, but from my hospital room, where there is nice bright sun shine, it looks warm. To my surprise and dismay, I am still in the hospital, but given my current status, it would be a tough go for me at home.

I had a nice visit from Michael, on Tuesday, while here he drew me some really nice pictures on my dry erase board.

Today is the day that they have started me on the new treatment plan - step one, they infused me, through IV, with a drug called "Infliximab", it is supposed to assist in suppressing the immune system, thus hoping to reduce my "Graft Vs Host" (GVHD - this is a medical condition where the donor cells attack and damage your tissues after you have a transplant).

Just for the record, all the tests that they have performed to date; endoscopy, colonoscopy, liver biopsy, CT Scans and swallowing of a camera so that they can see my small intestine via video plus some I have forgotten, and none have confirmed with physical evidence that I have GVHD - it is a Clinical Diagnosis only at this time. However, we believe that the Doctors are working their hardest to get me better.

On Thursday, as part of my new treatment, I will be given another drug called Prochymal (Ex-vivo Cultured Adult Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells) via Infusion for the treatment of Steroid Refractory Acute GVHD. Now that is just a title of the document they gave me explaining it, you should see the entire document. Now I know why I didn't become a doctor.

Right now the doctors are hoping that the above treatments, combined with the prednisone, tachrolimas, platelets among other medications will finally stop my diarrhea and I will be able to go home. Best guess - one maybe two more weeks.

For those of you who are now on this e-mail, but weren't on at the very start, you can now see all the past e-mails at the web site that my brother made, go to: http://cherylsfight.blogspot.com/

Also, remember to check out my brothers Team in training web site (you remember how he is raising money for the fight against Leukemia), praise God, he has reached his goal. However, if you wanted to donate and still do, you could help his other team mates. The following is my brothers "Team in Training" web site and one of his team mates:
http://www.active.com/donate/tntne/tntneCHofroc

http://www.active.com/donate/tntne/tntneDGoldin


I will be the first to admit that I was knocked off my feet a lot when they told me it would be maybe another week or two. I want to go home so much, but more than that I want to get better. Thank you all who have prayed and are continuing to pray for me, Gene and the kids. I know that with out all of your wonderful love and support this journey would have been much harder if not unbearable. Please pray for us in the following areas:
Praise God that the kids are hanging tough
Praise God that all the tests came back with out showing any additional complications
Praise for bright sunny days outside my hospital room
Praise for a wonderful husband and his wonderful work - I am so thankful for Kerry's continued support for us through these difficult times
Pray for us to have the wisdom to ask the doctors the right questions
Pray for the nurses here - they are so kind and caring, but it is a very demanding and draining responsibility for them
Continue to pray for Devine Healing - if and when it is Gods will
All of your phone calls - e-mails - letters and prayers have been so wonderful to receive thank you everyone.

May God Bless you all

Cheryl

5 Mar 2007

Once Again - Hello to All,

Well, here it is now another Monday, two weeks of being in the hospital. I wish I could say that they have made great progress and I am about to get out, but that isn't the case.

As I had mentioned previously, due to my excessive diarrhea, they started feeding me by IV (Steak in a Bag, as the nurses call it). The IV feeding in combination with the steroid they have me on has thrown my blood sugar all out of whack and as a result they now have me on daily insulin injections (I believe that this is only temporary).

The team of Doctors have now concluded that the steroid, first line drug of choice in combating Graft Vs Host (GVH), is clearly not helping. Today they are going to change my medications over to another drug regimen, second line defense against GVH, called Inflixamab which is an Anti TNF (sorry I can't explain the TNF).

In addition, my platelets have continued to drop, I was down to 9,000, I received another infusion on Sunday, so they are considering the continuous drip method (they used this in preparation for the other procedures they performed in the past weeks).

I was blessed on Sunday by a visit from my beautiful daughter, Emily. She rode up with Gene and I am certain he appreciated the company on the drive up. Michael received a wonderful invitation from a friend to come over for the day, that was great. He will come up during the week with Gene.

Clearly the main thing keeping me in right now is the diarrhea as well as the digestive tract problems / pain. They are keeping my pain level under control through the use of oxycodone and tincture of opium. I think that one or both of these makes me a bit forgetful, but I am thankful for the pain relief. They also give me other medications to numerous to list.

Please pray for the following:
Praise for allowing me to see Emily.
Praise for the support Gene has been able to provide.
Praise for all the cards / e-mails / phone calls I have received in the past few days - all these have truly brightened my day.
Praise for the diligence of the doctors - they have yet to give up on me.
Pray that the Lord God will either place his hand of healing on me or provide the doctors with insight so that I may be cured.
Pray for continued physical and mental strength - I need all that I can get right now.
Pray that my out-put becomes much less - this would possibly allow me to go home.
Your prayers and kindness to me and my family have been so great. Thank you one and all for hanging in there with us and not giving up.

P.S. For those of you who may not have gotten the last update, I am now in a different room and thus a different telephone number:

Room # B6/### Telephone number (608) ###-####

Love in Christ

Cheryl

1 Mar 2007

Hello to All,

Not a lot of new information. The picture shoot finished last night, but they won't have those results until Friday.

Today the Doctor told me that due to my continuing bout with diarrhea (day 16 or 17, I've lost track), they are going to keep me in the hospital another 3-4 days. By that time they should have more info back on the liver biopsy and have reviewed the 40,000 pictures. In addition, they are going to start providing me nutrition via IV they call it TPN (total parenteral nutrition). This will run for 10 - 12 hours once each day. As you might imagine, I am very weak and continue to lose strength.

My platelets have decreased from the astounding 82,000 Tuesday to 34,000 on Wednesday now to 17,000 on Thursday. As you might expect, they gave me another transfusion today. I am going to lay down and take a nap, as I am very tired.

Please pray that I will not be in here longer than the 3-4 additional days as I want to be home with my kids!!! I am very thankful I am not alone up here in the hospital, both physically (with Gene) and spiritually (with GOD), the later being the most important.

I will let you know more when I do.

Love in Christ

Cheryl

28 Feb 2007

Hello to All;

Lights, camera, action......well not exactly, what I mean to say is the doctors came in with the mini-cam "Pill" for me to swallow. If you recall this "Pill" is designed to take pictures of my digestive system (focused specifically on my small intestine). I am told it will take approx. 40,000 pictures, which will be available for review as early as Thursday afternoon. The "Pill" is yellow gold in color and is about the size of a mini tootsie roll.

As far as the past few days, they have been a real roller coaster. On Monday they did the biopsy of my liver (actually sliced off three samples of tissue). I went into this procedure with a great deal of apprehension. What a relief once it was completed and you know, it wasn't all that painful. As I had said, the big risk was me bleeding, due to low platelets. Well, after 24 hours of continuous transfusions of platelets along with an IV drug that helps your body retain platelets, my platelet count rose as high as 84,000....WOW! That was a big relief to me and the doctors performing this step.

Today, my platelets are now down to 34,000 and continuing to spiral. Not getting into to much detail, I am still plagued with diarrhea and turmoil in my abdominal region. I thought I was going to get to go home on Thursday, but the doctors don't believe that will happen. I still have more out-put than in-take, even with the IV's. Soon I hope.

I have received several phone calls and some cards (sent to my home address) and e-mails, wishing me well and full of encouragement. You will never know how much your words of hope mean to me. In addition, some people from my church have really taken the upper hand and invited the kids to dinner / play / even spending the night. This also has been a great help - as I worry about my children a great deal, and they really have enjoyed their time with others.

Still waiting on word / analysis from the liver biopsy. I will keep you posted. I am encouraged daily by the fact that all of this is for the glory of GOD. Daily I read the bible and pray for this illness to be removed, however I also pray that God's will be done. I am reminded that he will not burden me with more than I can bear and that he will never abandon me.

Please continue to:

Pray for my family that through all of this they remain strong and focused on the Lord our savior.
Pray for those in similar circumstances that don't have the strong support network of family - church - friends and even Gene's work (Kerry & Guards).
Pray for the Doctors and Nurses tending to my care that they will come to know the goodness and grace of God.
Praise for the fact that I am still here able to write to all of you, I know a few with the same illness that are not.
Pray that I get to go home soon, I miss the daily interaction with my children.
Love in Christ
Cheryl

25 Feb 2007

A Chilly hello to all;

From what I can see out of my hospital window there is a great deal of snow on the ground and there is very limited visibility with high winds (I can see flags in the distance - that is how I know if it is windy).

I am tired, discouraged and somewhat scared, but I will keep this short.

Please pray for me between now and Monday evening. Right now they are preparing me for tomorrows events. Currently I have no less than four lines of fluids running into my body; platelets (which mine were back down to 3,000 this morning), pain / nausea medication, some other medicine to help fight the Graft Vs Host and some other chemical that is supposed to help my body retain platelets.

If all goes well, in the morning they will begin by piercing my neck and jugular vein and sliping in a device that can travel down and take a right into my liver and slice off a piece for a biopsy. The risk, they now say, is that patients can really bleed from this.

In addition, I hear that they are considering having me swollow this mincam (aslippinge size of a large pill?? - never saw one) so they can have it take close up shots of my entire digestive system. I will let you know when or if that happens.

Please pray that the procedure on Monday goes well and provides them with a true insight as to help me and that I don't end up bleeding to much. They are trying to increase my platelets by running several bags consecutively over a period starting at 4 PM Sunday and ending 8 AM Monday in time for the little bit of fun mentioned above.

I don't have any idea when they will let me go home yet and to be honest, I feel as bad now as I did a week ago when I first came in.

Yes, I still have stomach pain and diarrhea (going on 12 days now). Praise for the fact that I saw my children on Friday - first time since Monday.

Thank you very much for your prayers - cards - visits and phone calls.

Love in Christ

Cheryl