mind, conscience, soul and integrity with every “me, me, me” speech from Donald Trump that our society seems to take seriously – we find a man so generous as to be asked TWICE save a stranger’s life a whole world away.
And twice he’s put his life on hold, did what was necessary, took the needles and all involved to save Jenn’s life.
And why?
Because he believes it’s his calling to help others when they need it the most.
Go read his letter again…
It just blows me away.
Happy Thanksgiving, indeed…
***
The infusion Jenn received last week is called a “DLI” – “donor lymphocyte infusion.”
Every DLI comes with a handout of pages of potential side effects regarding graft vs. host disease.
So, yes, the doctors are trying to get her to show the effects of this GVHD.
The WANT her to contract a mild case of this disease.
Instead of me reciting all of the possibilities – and all of them come with various degrees of discomfort and general awfulness – I’m just attaching the same handouts we have.
Oh, and there’s also Google…
Once the leukemia returned in late September, there were two pathways to her survival.
It was either this DLI from her original donor or an entirely new bone marrow transplant from a new donor – and that’s still a possibility in the future, if this fails. She currently has seven other known “perfect matches” in the world. But, for now, this is her best pathway to her safety and life without leukemia.
If you have followed our journey, you know we’ve had some setbacks since she entered the hospital on October 4th. This is not at all unusual in the leukemia world.
Jenn was first released from the hospital at 3 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 20. Less than 36 hours later, I was rushing her back to the hospital with extreme illness that was a second dreadful diabetic DKA that left her wiped out for two more days. I didn’t leave her side last Sunday and watched and tweeted about the Ravens-Rams game from the hospital. She was simply too sick for me to leave.
I finally brought her home on Tuesday but we were back at the hospital on Wednesday with another office appointment regarding her diabetic issues. And we were back at the docs on Black Friday for more tests to identify GVHD.
Cancer is a full time job. Honestly, it’s beyond a full time job. It’s an around-the-clock, lifestyle change in every imaginable way.
At this point, it’s a …
