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Some of you know that our daughter Jill Whitney was diagnosed in June, 2008 with a serious condition know as MDS. There is no known cause for the condition and no cure for this life threatening disease other than a bone marrow transplant.
The last couple of months we have been waiting anxiously to see if there is a donor match.  Last week Jill, her husband Roger, my wife Lynne and I met with the doctors at Stanford Hospital to review Jill’s latest bone marrow biopsy results from the previous week and received the great news that there haven’t been any significant changes since December, 2007 and her white blood counts, which were starting to decline, are now low, but stable.
The doctor’s recommendation is to put a hold on the transplant until necessary, due to the risk of complications. Eventually it will need to happen, but Jill has more time – perhaps two months, perhaps two years. Jill’s blood counts will be watched closely and she will meet with the Stanford doctors again in January, 2009 to re-evaluate. That means she will get to spend the holidays with family and friends.
The doctor also said that he was changing her diagnosis from “stage #2 intermediate” to between #1 and #2. While this is not remission per se, but we do believe that her somewhat less critical condition is an answer to all your faithful prayers.
The eventual transplant is quite an involved process. It will require 3-4 weeks of hospitalization including high dose chemotherapy, which will eliminate the MDS and Jill’s entire immune system. She will be at a high risk of infection and bleeding until her blood counts recover. After discharge, she will need 24/7 care within 30 minutes of the hospital; Lynne and I will be her caregivers and Jill will be staying with us in Los Gatos. After release from the hospital Jill will have daily 2-4 hour visits at Stanford hospital and she will not be allowed to return home in Redding, CA until day 100 following transplant. As you can see, it’s nothing to rush into.
The second good news is that thanks to all of your prayers Jill now has four potential HLA matched donors!
Here is a link if you want to keep up to date with Jill’s progress: http://www.carepages.com/carepages/jillsjourney2acure/updates
If you are interested in finding out more about becoming a bone marrow donor click>here.