Margy had a fever again Thursday of last week. After some tests Margy was diagnosed with a fungal pneumonia. As mentioned in a previous post (Margy Admitted for Fever) , transplant patients are extremely susceptible to all kinds of conditions due to their low blood counts. A fever indicates an infection and so a fever can be a life-threatening concern with bone marrow transplant patients. This is why it is extremely important to sanitize surfaces in Margy's environment extremely often. Margy wears a mask everywhere except for the apartment where she lives.
Bone marrow is responsible for creating your blood cells, including your white cells. Since radiation and chemo and transplant, Margy's immune system is starting over again. Her immune system is like a baby's immune system. She will have to get immunized again for things she was already immunized for as a child: MMR, chicken pox, etc. Margy's doctors told her that as a result of her immature immune system, she will be sicker the next three years than she has been in her adult life as her system matures.
Margy continued to have a fever intermittently the next several days. Margy's doctors are treating the fungal pneumonia and hopefully she will be fully recovered from that soon.
Here you can find the latest information on Margy's progress with MDS. We hope this will be a resource for patients, families, and friends dealing with Myelodysplastic Syndromes and other types of cancer. To subscribe to updates to this blog, click here: 
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Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Monday, September 5, 2011
Engraftment!!
We received news today that the engraftment test returned with great news -- 100% engraftment! That means the marrow is all donor marrow. The medical team will continue to monitor for graft versus host disease. Since engraftment happened in this percentage and this early, the likelihood of quicker recovery exists than it does for patients with less donor marrow. The path to recovery continues, but this is a huge accomplishment and the news for which we have been waiting!
Friday, September 2, 2011
More Days Off
Today is day 37 post transplant. Mom had two days off this week and has this weekend off. By "days off" I mean that she didn't have to go into the hospital at all - yay! Less medicines are needed now too, which is great.
We did not get the results of the bone marrow engraftment test today as we had hoped, but should find out Monday once mom returns to the hospital again.
We'll keep you posted...
We did not get the results of the bone marrow engraftment test today as we had hoped, but should find out Monday once mom returns to the hospital again.
We'll keep you posted...
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