Friday, March 28th
Hello to all our Glenna fans. I am down in Maryland with Glenna. We came down on Wednesday in order for her to have a complete set of scans on Thursday. On Wed. night, Glenna started having severe pains in her abdomen. She has had two episodes of this before, but this was, by far, the worst. Her doctors had said that she could stay Wed. night in the hotel with me and report to the hospital early Thursday morning. But the pain started around 5 pm that evening and we ended up going back to the hospital and having her admitted. She was throwing up from the intensity of the pain, so they put her on morphine and an anti-nausea medication. Neither helped much. She was up all night. In the middle of the night, they changed her medication to Dilaudid, and gave her a stronger anti-nausea med, and she seems to be tolerating the pain alot better. It is still coming and going, but when it comes, even on the meds, she's pretty uncomfortable. The trick is to keep the meds flowing at a constant rate - it's tricky.
Thursday morning she had to have an MRI of her brain and a CAT scan of her torso. She was pretty out of it throughout those procedures. Once they were over, she went back to her room and basically passed out for the remainder of the day. The docs came in that evening and talked to us about the initial results: no new spots in her brain or anywhere they could see in her body - good news. But the largest tumor - the one in her upper abdomen - is creating havoc on her intenstines, and probably will need to be removed. It is now the size of a grapefruit. She has many other tumors, but this one is the immediate and primary source of distress to her body.
They did tell us that the Till cells that were removed from the 2 tumors that they took 2 weeks ago are now growing successfully and are ready to be used in another cell transfer treatment. This would be the same treatment she had done twice before, but this would be the first time they would be using her own Till cells, instead of the engineered cells they made from her lymphosites previously - which proved not to work well enough. The big question was whether to start her on this treatment immediately, with the current pain issues she is having, or to operate first, and treat later.
Her medical team had their opinions of what should be done, but they said they wanted to present her history and current situation to the entire senior medical staff at a consult this morning. They asked Glenna if she would come in to the meeting at one point and meet everyone and answer any questions they might have about her condition. So at 8:15 this morning we went down to the conference room and joined the group for a brief Q & A session. It was pretty intimidating - when we walked in there was a huge room full of about 35 doctors/radiologists/surgeons/scientists all sitting there. But it was OK. Glenna spoke like a pro and answered questions, and then we were excused and waited back in her room for the next 2 hours until her team came in to discuss their decision.
They finally came in and told us that they had decided that the safest approach was to have surgery first, take enough time for her to heal, and then move right into the cell treatment. Their fear is that if they do not remove this tumor first, and she proceeds with the treatment - and then during the treatment she should need emergency surgery, her immune system would be depleted and she would have no defense against infection or any other problems that arise. It would be very dangerous at that point. So she agreed to go ahead with the surgery, which will take place Monday morning - and probably last around 2 hours. They have a definite plan for surgery, which is to go in and remove just that one tumor, then close her up and she will start to heal. However, they had to tell us that they always have to have a backup plan, as they cannot forsee everything until they actually go inside. One scenario could be that when they get in there, they may see other tumors that look harmful and could safely be removed at the same time, in which case, they would remove anything else that will safely come out. The other scenario is that they could go in and find that they cannot safely remove this one large tumor. If this happened, they would close her up and let her heal, and then attempt to do the treatment anyway. But of course, we hope that will not be the case.
I apologize for running on so, but this have been our day - almost too much to digest at once. She has the weekend to rest, get strong and prepare herself for Monday. They are going to start giving her some sort of concoction of calories and protein, intravenuously, and she will stay on that the whole time she's here. She is at her lowest weight right now and she needs to be stronger to get through all of this. As I sit here and write this, she is having a Reiki treatment. One of her nurses is a Reiki instructor and has offered to treat her as often as she wants.
And if this isn't enough stress to go through in the last two days, we had the dreaded call from home telling us that Mary got loose and ran off for the majority of the day yesterday. We had family and friends all out looking for her all day. Needless to say, Glenna was beside herself. It's pretty hard when you're this far away to not go crazy when something like this happens. And I'm sure you all know how much Mary means to Glenna. Well, THANK GOD, and Adam, and Jacque, and Bruce and Nancy, and Will....they found her in the neighborhood just before dark and brought her home. I can't even tell you how that felt to get that call that she was OK. As Glenna said, God is testing her - BIG TIME! Well, she has passed all the tests so far - and I know there's no way she won't pass the rest that come her way.
Well, that's the latest in this epic drama of Glenna's life. If anyone would like to send her a card, her address is the same as before, with just a room # change:
Glenna
National Institue of Health
9000 Rockville Pike
Building 10, 3NW
Room 2660
Bethesda, MD 20892
Thanks to all for being there - I'll update you again later.
Love, MK
Thursday morning she had to have an MRI of her brain and a CAT scan of her torso. She was pretty out of it throughout those procedures. Once they were over, she went back to her room and basically passed out for the remainder of the day. The docs came in that evening and talked to us about the initial results: no new spots in her brain or anywhere they could see in her body - good news. But the largest tumor - the one in her upper abdomen - is creating havoc on her intenstines, and probably will need to be removed. It is now the size of a grapefruit. She has many other tumors, but this one is the immediate and primary source of distress to her body.
They did tell us that the Till cells that were removed from the 2 tumors that they took 2 weeks ago are now growing successfully and are ready to be used in another cell transfer treatment. This would be the same treatment she had done twice before, but this would be the first time they would be using her own Till cells, instead of the engineered cells they made from her lymphosites previously - which proved not to work well enough. The big question was whether to start her on this treatment immediately, with the current pain issues she is having, or to operate first, and treat later.
Her medical team had their opinions of what should be done, but they said they wanted to present her history and current situation to the entire senior medical staff at a consult this morning. They asked Glenna if she would come in to the meeting at one point and meet everyone and answer any questions they might have about her condition. So at 8:15 this morning we went down to the conference room and joined the group for a brief Q & A session. It was pretty intimidating - when we walked in there was a huge room full of about 35 doctors/radiologists/surgeons/scientists all sitting there. But it was OK. Glenna spoke like a pro and answered questions, and then we were excused and waited back in her room for the next 2 hours until her team came in to discuss their decision.
They finally came in and told us that they had decided that the safest approach was to have surgery first, take enough time for her to heal, and then move right into the cell treatment. Their fear is that if they do not remove this tumor first, and she proceeds with the treatment - and then during the treatment she should need emergency surgery, her immune system would be depleted and she would have no defense against infection or any other problems that arise. It would be very dangerous at that point. So she agreed to go ahead with the surgery, which will take place Monday morning - and probably last around 2 hours. They have a definite plan for surgery, which is to go in and remove just that one tumor, then close her up and she will start to heal. However, they had to tell us that they always have to have a backup plan, as they cannot forsee everything until they actually go inside. One scenario could be that when they get in there, they may see other tumors that look harmful and could safely be removed at the same time, in which case, they would remove anything else that will safely come out. The other scenario is that they could go in and find that they cannot safely remove this one large tumor. If this happened, they would close her up and let her heal, and then attempt to do the treatment anyway. But of course, we hope that will not be the case.
I apologize for running on so, but this have been our day - almost too much to digest at once. She has the weekend to rest, get strong and prepare herself for Monday. They are going to start giving her some sort of concoction of calories and protein, intravenuously, and she will stay on that the whole time she's here. She is at her lowest weight right now and she needs to be stronger to get through all of this. As I sit here and write this, she is having a Reiki treatment. One of her nurses is a Reiki instructor and has offered to treat her as often as she wants.
And if this isn't enough stress to go through in the last two days, we had the dreaded call from home telling us that Mary got loose and ran off for the majority of the day yesterday. We had family and friends all out looking for her all day. Needless to say, Glenna was beside herself. It's pretty hard when you're this far away to not go crazy when something like this happens. And I'm sure you all know how much Mary means to Glenna. Well, THANK GOD, and Adam, and Jacque, and Bruce and Nancy, and Will....they found her in the neighborhood just before dark and brought her home. I can't even tell you how that felt to get that call that she was OK. As Glenna said, God is testing her - BIG TIME! Well, she has passed all the tests so far - and I know there's no way she won't pass the rest that come her way.
Well, that's the latest in this epic drama of Glenna's life. If anyone would like to send her a card, her address is the same as before, with just a room # change:
Glenna
National Institue of Health
9000 Rockville Pike
Building 10, 3NW
Room 2660
Bethesda, MD 20892
Thanks to all for being there - I'll update you again later.
Love, MK
posted by Glenna @ 1:56 PM
3 Comments:
At 8:20 PM,
Anonymous said…
David and I are sitting at the table and want to send a huge load of encouragement to all of you... what a remarkable family you are! Glenna, you blow my socks off Sweetie. You are a super fighter and ought to think about writing a book about this whole ordeal once it's over! You are the epitome of perseverance and I want the whole world to know it!! In the meantime everyone in my part of the world knows it and we're all praying for you. "Thank you Lord, for Glenna, Colleen, Bobby, Jake, the Rapskallion Mary and Patrick, the entire medical staff, friends, co-workers, pet sitters and all who love them. Jesus, take care of our little girl and we ask it all in your precious name, amen."
With oodles of hugs & love,
LB & David
At 11:12 PM,
Andrea said…
I will follow suit and add a small prayer.
"God we ask that you would be with the medical staff this weekend and Monday morning as they prepare for Glenna's surgery. Give them guidance as they go in and search her insides. We pray that they would be able to remove her tumor safely. We pray for full body healing. God, we ask that you would not only keep her strong, but give her family strength as they continue in this battle together. Lastly, we ask that you would comfort Glenna and remind her that she is not alone in any of this - she is loved and cared for by You and many others. In Jesus name, Amen"
I am praying for you girl! xoxo ~ ange
At 4:40 PM,
Unknown said…
matt and I are praying for you Glenna xoxoxoxo
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