Marcia's News for February 15th

Hello Everyone:

Marcia's good news is that according to all the most recent diagnostic testing the bone marrow transplant has worked and her bone marrow is doing all the normal things it is supposed to do. This is of course wonderful news. Unfortunately, side effects from the process continue to create all kinds of huge challenges and are now where her biggest fight is taking place. The most dangerous and persistent of these... the one now causing the majority of the problems, is the Graft-Versus-Host Disease(GVHD). It has proved to be stubborn and persistent and resistant to some degree or another of most of the remedies that have been tried. It is better than it was, but it continues to be her biggest challenge now.

Last week another port was surgically placed on her left chest and an entirely new treatment was begun. The port proved very difficult to get into place and her left side has three incisions from three attempts and is painful and sore and black and blue, as she says, with no blue, just black. This had to be done to accommodate this newest treatment. It is called THERAKOS™ Photopheresis and is a process slightly similar to dialysis. What it does is remove a small amount of the patient's blood into a machine which then separates it into it's various components, adds medications to the white blood cells, activates the medication by UVA light and then finally, returns the treated white blood cells to the patient's body. The intention and expectation is that this process significantly boosts the effectiveness of the medications and in some way boosts the immune system's response to the medications and the overall healing process. This information is taken from and more information can be found at www.therakos.com.

Tina and Pat are taking a lot of control of her nutrition. They are being very careful and diligent to see which foods agree with her and which do not and are shaping what she eats accordingly. They are also giving her protein shakes, all of which, until the surgery to install the port, had started to work very well and should continue to do so going forward. In addition to this, some of the medications that were previously used are being reduced or eliminated, so that many of the medication side effects are being reduced.

She remains very, very weak and right now is not capable of independent movement... moving in bed, shifting positions, and she is unable to stand or walk at all. Needless to say this is very discouraging. She really really dislikes (read hates :) the therapies because they are so uncomfortable and require so much exertion, but she does them. Recently they have brought in a machine... a contraption... that assists with standing because she just cannot stand unassisted, even with support of two people. This machine supports in all the right places and allowed her to stand upright without the fear of falling and that in turns allows circulation, stretching and strengthening of those areas that have become too weak to support her.

Most importantly Marcia continues to hang in there and fight hard to get over all of this and get back home. She has never, in any way, given up, nor is there any reason to think that she ever will. She has proved to be a tremendous fighter and the rest of us continue to be amazed at her strength and determination to beat this thing. We have every expectation that she can and that she will.

As always, please keep Marcia, and all of us in your thoughts and prayers. Thanks so much for the support you have already given us. We appreciate everything so much.

Marcia's Family