1 Year Celebration

Last week we celebrated my mom's 1 year anniversary since her stem cell transplant!  Wow, it's been a YEAR!  On her 1 year anniversary mom had a check-up appointment up at Northwestern.  They did a bone marrow draw to see how everything looks, rather than just looking at her blood results.  With this procedure (which she's had done a few times since her transplant) they draw bone marrow out of her hip bone.  They send it to the lab and it takes about a week to receive the results.

We found out this week that the bone marrow came back perfectly clean!  It's great to have confirmation that she's still cancer free!  We were pretty confident that she was healthy because of how she feels and because her monthly blood results continue to show the doctor she's doing well, but the bone marrow confirms everything. 

No matter what, we trust that our God is in control.  He knows my mom better than the doctor and has healed her from disease.  We continue to praise and thank Him everyday, and will no matter what the future brings for anyone in our family.  We pray that each of your holidays will be filled with honoring Jesus and appreciation for the many blessings that He pours out on us everyday.  Take some time this holiday season to share God's love with someone who needs hope in their life.

God bless!

Happy Fall

Everything is still going great for my Mom.  Her doctor is still extremely pleased with her blood results each time she has an appointment.  Her counts continue to head in the right direction and they continue to decrease the amount of medicine she has to take.
We've come a long way from a year ago, been through many hard times and experienced many blessings.  Now that we're nearing the 1 year anniversary of Mom's stem cell transplant we recognize how blessed we are to have our mother in our lives.  Her doctor says that normally they do a bone marrow draw around 1 year after the transplant, but they may not choose to do it if her blood counts continue to be so positive.  Mom was so happy to hear this.  It's a relief to her each time the doctor tells her how well she's doing.

Mom is kept busy, just as she likes it, with babysitting her grand kids (Amy and I are coaching volleyball this fall), visiting her mother in Ottawa, and managing her house.  David is still living with Adam and his family in Pennsylvania for the fall and is doing well, just a bit homesick now.  He's used to my Mom taking care of him and I'm sure he misses her a lot.  We were able to visit with him and Adam's family a couple weekends ago as Adam was inducted into the Millikin Athletic Hall of Fame.  It was such a fun weekend with them and great to see them, as always.  Cory, Tenley and I have kept my parents company, using the extra room we finished in their basement since we moved to town in the summer.  We plan on finding a home here in Seneca, but are able to keep my Mom company as my Dad works his long hours with the outages going on.

Thanks for your continued prayers and love.  We'll continue to give God all the glory and hope to bless others with the blessings we've received.

Good Reports for Mary, Sad News about Friend

Mom had her 3 week checkup on Wednesday and all is well.  Her levels are continuing to improve each month and they continue to reduce her medicine.  She's feeling really well and enjoying the beautiful weather God has given us these past few weeks.

We're very sad to say that Mom's friend Chuck, who was also battling leukemia, passed away last week.  Mom was able to talk with Chuck over the phone and offer support and encouragement as he faced many challenges in his fight against cancer.  Please lift Chuck's family up in prayer...it's an incredibly hard time for everyone close with him.  Mom is thankful she was able to know him the past few months but it's definitely been a hard week for her.

Thanks for checking in...God bless.

Blessings & Prayer Requests

Mary & Greg welcomed a new grandchild on July 17!  Tenley Grace is my (Suzanne's) and Cory's new baby girl and we are celebrating this new blessing in our lives.  My mom is loving every minute of time she's spending with Tenley :)

Mom has kept busy this summer entertaining guests, having Amy's kids over to swim, and a visit from Adam, Bre, and their kids, Lane and Graysen.  All of her counts have been good and because of God's blessings, she's been feeling great.

She asks that you would lift up 2 friends of hers in prayer.  Chuck was diagnosed with AML a couple months ago and has had many battles since.  He is currently in ICU after his stem cell transplant because he has become very sick.  Please lift him and his family up to our God who is the Healer of all and the Hope we can trust in.  Please also pray for mom's friend Meridith who mom met in the hospital while going through the same rounds of treatment.  Meridith's AML has come back since her transplant and she's now taking medicine at home to battle the disease.

As always, thank you for all the love and support.

Summer time

Mom is doing really well these days.  She has lots of energy (to keep up with her kids and grand kids) and is over the worst of her cold and allergies.  Mom's doctor had to prescribe some new medicine last week because her graph's v host is acting up a bit in her liver.  The blood results this week show that the medicine is already helping.  It's nothing that they weren't expecting and is very manageable.

Other than that she's really enjoying her summer.  Amy's kids are over almost everyday to swim, Cory and I are staying at Mom and Dad's for a little while this summer, and David says he's never moving out :)  Obviously all of this gives my mom plenty to do.  Mom's trip to see Adam and Bre went great.  They had a really fun and eventful long weekend.  Mom also has been up to see Julie and Evan in Chicago many times over the past month.  It works out well that Julie's living in the city now since mom's up there for her appointments once in a while.  Any day now I'll be having my and Cory's first baby and that will just add to the excitement of my mom's busy summer.  Do you think she realized her job as a mother would keep her this busy even after we're all adults??

Thanks for your continued prayers, as always.  Mom feels the love from each of you.  God bless!

Doing well

Mom had an appointment again today in Chicago.  Her doctor was very happy with all her results from this week and always makes my mom feel so confident and happy with everything.  Her counts aren't exactly where normal levels should be, but it's normal in her situation since her body is still recuperating from everything.  Also, the more they lower her medicine, the more her body has to fight to get back to normal.  She's doing very well besides dealing with a head cold and allergies.  She's starting some antibiotics to fight them off.

Mom and Dad are heading out to see Adam, Bre, Lane, and Graysen in Pennsylvania tomorrow morning!  They're so excited to be heading out there and I know Adam and Bre love having them.  It should be such a fun weekend for them!

Further Testing

The hospital did further testing on mom's bone marrow and determined that she now has 100% of Joe's (the donor & Mary's brother) stem cells.  I don't talk about this very often on here but this is a really good thing because my mom's cells are no longer combating Joe's.  It always takes a while for this to happen, and we slowly saw the number come up, now all the way to 100%.  Because of this, they don't have to do any stem cell treatment.  We always like to hear that she doesn't have to go through additional procedures!

They also are happy with her platelet count this week.  It jumped up a few more points and this was good for the doctor to see.  It had been going down for a few weeks, the doctor believes due to graphs versus host because they are lowering her anti-rejection medication each week/month (if that's too specific, I'm sorry :).  All that to say, they're happy with where she's at and hope to see it continue to go up.

Now Mary and Greg are off for a fun weekend with all of Mary's siblings.  They try to do this once a year and always have a great time together!  It's great my mom can do this with no worries! :)

Clean Marrow

Hi everyone,
Mom's results came back clean on the bone marrow from last week, praise the Lord!  They see no signs of cancer and are still very happy with how she's doing.  They're running more tests on her bone marrow this week to determine exactly what to do with her medicine, which we should hear more about later this week.  They want to decrease her medicine as much as possible, as soon as possible, so that her imune system can build up to be strong enough to fight off disease in the future.

Waiting on Bone Marrow Results

Mom had her appointment at Northwestern yesterday and had a bone marrow done.  Her levels are all still looking good, they're just doing the bone marrow because it's been a while and they want to check things out at a closer view. 

Mom always gets a bit nervous to have the bone marrow done but it went very smooth and my dad was with to support her.  Now we await the results but probably won't hear until Monday. 

Please pray for my mom that she can trust in God's plan above her own, that she feels peace about her upcoming results, and that she remains healthy.  There will always be a part of her that's nervous to get these test results but I was reminding her last night of how good she feels and how great her results have been lately.  We will continue to trust in the Lord for our every need.

Who wants to hear more good news?

Mom had her appointment at Northwestern on Wednesday and found out her red count is now at 12.5!!  That's in the normal range (11-14)!!!  The doctor was very pleased about this and all is looking well :)  It must have taken a few weeks for the red cell treatment to kick in gear. 

Also many of Mom's medications are consistently being lowered in dosage.  She's down to almost nothing with her anti-rejection medicine so the doctor is confident that Joe's stem cells have now taken over mostly, if not all of mom's blood.  They're going to do a bone marrow next week to take a closer look at everything since it's been a couple months.  We're confident about it this time with her blood results coming back so positive.

Thank you for your continued prayers.

On a sad note, mom's hospital friend, Meridith, learned a couple weeks ago that her leukemia is back and she's now in the hospital going through treatment again.  This was extremely hard for my mom to hear but she was able to stop by and see Meridith after her appointment this week.  The reminder of the reality of cancer will always be around each of us, but we know our Lord has a plan for each person we know.  Please lift Meridith up today in your prayers and remember to live each day to the fullest as we don't know how many we have ahead of us.

In Florida!

Mom's count stayed up again this week at 9.6, woohoo!  So Mom and Dad left for Florida yesterday and will be there for a little over a week.  They were so excited to go and I know they'll have a great time!

Good blood count

Mom's blood count maintained this week at 9.5...good stuff!

Set to go on vacation!

My mom and dad went up for mom's appointment today to have a checkup with the doctor.  They've planned a vacation to Florida for about 10 days at the end of this month and my mom has been a little nervous about her levels and not being able to go.  Today the doctor said everything was looking great.  Mom's blood count was at 9.6 (up .5 from Monday) and the doctor was happy with all of the other counts as well.  Mom will continue her weekly appointments at Ottawa hospital for blood work, but doesn't have to go back up to Northwestern until June 2nd!  They'll continue to watch the results but it looks like they'll be able to head off to Florida as scheduled!  What great news!  Both of my parents deserve a vacation since my dad's been working all over the state for the past few months and they haven't been able to relax together for a while.  Praise God for this gift :)

Up & Down

My mom had her doctor's appointment yesterday at Northwestern.  She was low on blood again this week so she had to stay to get a transfusion.  They're not exactly sure why her blood is still fluctuating but this week it held off longer than ever...she hadn't had a transfusion in 3 weeks.  We're still hoping the red cell treatment will work (they said it can take about 6 weeks to take full effect) but they are also talking with mom about alternatives if her levels keep going down.  The next thing they'd try is a pill drug which has some side effects (not sure what they all are yet) but my mom's doctor wants to talk with the head doctor first.  Her other levels (platelets and everything else) seem to be doing fine.  Mom was a bit bummed about her blood level, but the doctor reassured her that there could be WAY worse things to be dealing with at this point and that mom is doing great.

Please continue to pray for her to get healthier and healthier.  We continue to put all of our trust in our God who loves us.

Update

Mom doesn't have an appointment this week but still had her normal blood draw on Monday.  She checked on the results and they were great!  Her red cells are hanging right where they were last week and her platelet count was up again.  Lots to be thankful for :)

We'll continue to praise God for the healing we've witnessed and also for offering each one of us salvation that we can choose to accept.  I pray that you would know your Creator on a deeper level today.

Great Appointment Today

My mom had her weekly appointment today with her doctor at Northwestern.  Last week we were wondering about her platelet level but this week it went back up 10 points!  We were so happy to hear that :)  Her doctor said that the drop could have been caused by the red blood cell treatment she was getting.  Mom's red cell count is hanging in there, too.  It went down a tiny bit from last week but that's still expected at this point and is at a fine level where she doesn't need a transfusion.

Another good thing is that her appointments are now going to be every 2 weeks instead of weekly.  She'll still have her blood taken each week at Ottawa Hospital but she won't need to drive to Chicago as often.

Many blessings to report once again!  No matter what, God is truly in control and we will trust in Him through every step of this journey.  Mary (and all of us) thanks you all so much for your prayers and love.

I heard this song today and thought I'd share...

Platelet Prayers Needed

Mom had her weekly Northwestern appointment today and finished getting her red blood cell treatment. They are pleased with her red cell count since it raised slightly from Monday to today. Hopefully it will continue going in the right direction from now on!

They look at a few different things in my Mom's blood each week, one being her red cell count (I talked about above) and one being her platelet count. Now they're saying that her platelet count has gone down a bit over the past 3 weeks. My Mom's main doctor was out today so we'll have to wait and see what she thinks, but they may order another bone marrow test to be done next week to make sure everything is okay. The doctor's assistant, who met with Mom today, asked another head doctor about this and he said not to order the bone marrow test for now, and this made my Mom feel better. We never like to hear that levels are going in the wrong direction, but there's not much we can figure out when they give us bits of information like this. We just have to trust that they know what to do and that God is in complete control.  Other than that, she has a little bit of a chest cold so they prescribed an antibiotic today to knock it out.

We'll keep you all updated on this. But the good news is Mom is feeling great. She has more and more energy all the time and is doing everything she wants to do.  We had a family celebration party for her this past Saturday. It was a great time and a double celebration for the resurrection of our Savior. We're so thankful for everything God has blessed us with, but most of all for His Son. We hope you had a great Easter weekend celebrating as well!

Please pray for my Mom's platelet count to start going back up and that her good health continues.

Spring

Hi all!  My Mom is still doing great.  She had her 3rd red blood cell treatment yesterday and went back to get a transfusion today.  Everything is checking out fine and we're hoping her red cells catch up soon!

She's been as busy as ever lately.  Yesterday after her appointment she went with Amy and her 3 girls to the zoo in Chicago.  They had a beautiful day to do it!  This weekend her sister and sister in laws are having a celebration party for her along with lots of Easter festivities and Adam, Bre, and the kids in town.  It's going to be a great weekend!

Update from yesterday

If you haven't read the previous post yet, my mom got her red blood cell treatment done yesterday.  The treatment was done to help her red blood cells start producing normal.  Over the past few weeks mom has still had to get blood transfusions to keep her level up.  They're hoping after a few sessions of this treatment she won't have to get the transfusions anymore.  The treatment went great with no side effects and the doctor was really happy with everything.  We probably won't see direct results from mom's blood level right away.

Since the treatment took 6 hours to complete, they didn't have time to give mom the blood transfusion she needed.  Since they still wanted to get this done mom had to stay in the hospital last night.  She wasn't trilled about doing this but she knew it was necessary and had a really good attitude about it.

Mom text me this morning saying she was out of the hospital and having a meal with Sue, Jim, and David.  Everything went great but my mom will be glad to be back in her own bed tonight :)

Thanks for checking in!

Getting a treatment done today

My mom is heading up to Northwestern today to get the red blood cell treatment done.  For the past couple weeks her count has still been fluctuating and they're confident this treatment will help speed up the process of her red cells getting back to normal.  We didn't know she was going to have to have this treatment for sure, but they just let mom know a couple days ago.

She'll have about 6 hours of the red cell treatment at the doctor's office, then head over to the hospital where she has to spend the night in order to get a blood transfusion.  Her level is down to a 7.6 again and they don't have enough time to do the treatment and transfusion all at the doctor's office in one day.  She's not thrilled about having to stay in the hospital tonight but she knows that this could be a great turning point to having everything on track and have less doctor's visits!

Her spirits are great and she continues to count on the Lord to give her strength.  It's been great having her healthy again, able to do all the things she loves.  She visits her mom in Ottawa many times throughout the week, she babysits her grandkids, she tries to keep David (her youngest) on track, and anything else she feels like doing.  We're truly blessed.

Please pray that today goes well and that the treatment is successful.  Also, Mary's 2 boys (David and Adam) are heading to Haiti along with their cousin (Mark Aubry), uncle (Jim Aubry), and an Eastview Christian Church team for a missions trip tomorrow and could use your prayers for a safe trip and one that produces fruit.

100th Day!!!

(From Mary)
Hi Everyone,

Just to let you know that Today is my 100th day........

Lets celebrate all together for Our God to allow this day to not only happen but the way I'm doing is so amazing because of Him. Just want to again thank everyone for your daily prayers and Thank the Lord for His Mercy and Grace that He has sent my way. God willing this is just the beginning of how wonderful I feel and that He keep the Blessing Happening.........I Love you all,

Mary

Surprise - Good News at Appointment Today

Mom and Sue went up to Mom's appointment today at Northwestern.  My Mom was told they actually wouldn't be doing the 6 hour treatment today like they thought because it hadn't been ordered by the lab yet.  But when she went up there and had her normal blood work done along with her normal doctor's appointment they found some great results.  Mom's red blood count went up a bunch since last time, higher than it's been since this whole thing started last summer!  They also determined that Joe's stem cells have now taken over 99% of the blood (which the doctor said may as well be 100%)!  This means that Mom might never have to get the treatment they were talking about.

This is such great news and the doctor was thrilled!  Mom doesn't even have an appointment scheduled for next Thursday now since her counts were so great today.  It sounds like they're pretty confident Mom's blood finally started normal production and should continue on this way.  Home health care will continue coming to take blood on Mondays and from that they will be able to tell from that if Mom needs any care.  Yay!  Prayers have been answered time and time again :)

Bone Marrow 2 Results

I just received a text from my Mom. She said that she just got off the phone with Dr. Jessica and that there are NO signs of cancer from her bone marrow test last Thursday!! Woohoo, praise God (again and again and again)! The reason Mom's losing blood is still because Mom's old blood type is still fighting Joe's (the donor's) blood type. The doctor says there's a treatment to jump start the cells to start working correctly. She'll start that on Thursday when she goes back up to Northwestern. The doctor said this condition is rare but they can fix it.

We couldn't really ask for a better report!

Update

Our Mom is still doing well. On Tuesday Sue went with her up to Northwestern because Mom needed to get another blood transfusion. They're not exactly sure why she's still losing blood but like I've explained in previous posts, they have a couple options of what it could be and both of them can be helped/fixed.

At Mom's appointment today they did another bone marrow draw to look further into the issue. Hopefully they'll be able to pinpoint it this time and solve it! My Dad said the appointment went well today but they won't know anything for a few days.

Thanks for continuing to pray!

Thursday Appointment

Mom just text me after her appointment at Northwestern:

Appointment went great, did drop in blood a little but no transfusion. All other numbers are up which she (the doctor) liked.

Things are continuing to get better and better each week. We're so thankful. Mom, Amy, and Amy's girls came to Bloomington last weekend and we had a really great time together. It's so great to see my mom doing things she used to, and enjoying them again.

We love good news

My mom is doing SO well these past few weeks :) She's getting around much more, is feeling better each day, and they keep decreasing her meds. Praise the Lord from whom all blessings flow!

She had her weekly doctor's appointment at Northwestern and her doctor was very pleased. Last week they decreased her anti-rejection meds (immune suppression meds) in half in order to determine why her blood count has continued to go down slowly. At this point they're pretty sure it's because of Joe's (the donor) blood type being different than my mom's. This causes them to fight a bit to take over, which Joe's will fully take over at some point. Since my mom checked out well again today they are now deciding whether to decrease the anti-rejection meds again or to stop them completely. This means she's doing really well. My mom said the doctor seemed really happy that her platelet count keeps going up, so this must be an important factor that we don't fully understand.

Mom did get more blood today, and may have to again in the future, but things are looking great. Mom is also excited about making the journey with Amy and kids down to Bloomington tomorrow to visit me and Julie :) Our mom hasn't been down to Bloomington since last summer! It's been way too long and we're so glad she's up for a day with the girls!! It was even her idea!

Thanks for your continued prayers. We also pray that you're all doing well and enjoying God's many blessings.

Doing well

Hi everyone...

Everything is still going well with our mom. She's getting stronger each week and feeling more like herself. This week she was able to start driving again, so that's been nice and has given her some freedom. She's still taking it easy, but it's nice to have the option to visit her grandkids or run to the store if she needs to.

Her doctor's appointment yesterday went well. They cut her immune suppression medicine in half again this week to try and determine what's causing her blood level to slowly drop. They're not sure if it's the different blood types or if it's the graphs v host. Either way, it's treatable and they're not worried. They've told us from the beginning that seeing a little graphs v host isn't a bad thing, as long as it doesn't get too strong.

Thanks for checking in!

Text

I received a text from my mom yesterday with an update:

"Ok everyone, my anti rejection meds are cut in half, that's good news...and my blood count went up .6 from 9 (last thursday) to 9.6. And Joe's stem cells are now 94.6% active in me now. I just talked to the assistant, and they like that they're not seeing any cancer cells. Praise our Lord."

It was great to get that news yesterday and I thought we should share it. The goal is that she can be off of the anti rejection meds in about 100 days from the transplant, and it looks like we're heading that way. Since her blood count went up a bit that means she's producing her own red blood cells again, which was a cause for concern last week.

Great News Today

The past few weeks Mom's red blood cell count has been going down as well as her platelet count. It was low enough this week that Mom needed to get a blood transfusion. Sue took Mom up to Northwestern yesterday to get this done, and they also ended up taking a bone marrow sample to see exactly what is going on and why the levels are going down.

The doctor said the blood levels can go down when 2 different blood types are combating (my Mom's against her donors). The doctor also said that she does see this happen with other patients.

My Dad took my Mom back up to Northwestern today to get the results of the bone marrow and to have the weekly checkup. They said they don't see anything abnormal (cancer) in the sample, praise God, and that they have to study the sample further to see more of what's going on. We were so glad to hear that she is still cancer free!

The doctor said they may start decreasing her immune suppression medicine that she's been taking ever since the transplant. We expected this would happen soon and hopefully it will help her continue to gain strength, have less nausea, and feel better all around!

We're so thankful that the cancer is still gone and that things are on track. We trust, no matter what, that God is in control and that He has a perfect plan for each of our lives. We ask that you continue to pray for our Mom. She specifically would like prayer for her blood counts to continue going up so the questions and confusion aren't there anymore. We'll update the blog again when we get more information. Thanks for checking in!

Update

Mom is on her way home from her weekly appointment at Northwestern. She feels about the same as last week, still dealing with an upset stomach everyday. The doctor gave her a new prescription to try that may help her nausea. The doctors and nurses have always been very helpful to try different things if Mom's not completely comfortable.

Also, Mom's blood count and platelets have gone down a bit over the last couple weeks. The doctor said this is because Mom and Joe (her stem cell donor) have different blood types and they are battling a little. This is completely normal and should turn around about 3 months after the transplant and will not continue to be a problem. The doctor said that if Mom's blood count is still a bit low next week then they will give her a transfusion at her appointment. Again, there's nothing that we're worried about with this.

I guess that's all for now! Let me know in the comments section if you have any specific questions or give my Mom a call or a visit if you can :)

Happy New Year

Hello everyone! Sorry it's been so long since we've updated you! Our mom is doing very well these days. She's feeling better little by little and all of her counts are going up as they should be. The doctor is very happy with her progress. Mom spends most of her days at home still working on gaining her strength and energy back but she enjoys lots of visitors and just the fact that she can now be at home. She's still on a lot of medication that upsets her stomach, but overall, everything is going as best as we could hope for. Please continue to pray that these critical days go smooth.

Here's a picture we took at our family Christmas...













And a picture of the grandkids...