I know all of you don't know me, but I am writing for a very important reason. What we all have in common is a friend - Jenny (Mickey_Mouse). For those of you who don't already know, Jenny has been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (one of the most treatable forms). I received a letter from her father Saturday night. She was on vacation with her family and Sunday when they arrived in Las Vegas, she became very ill. She was taken to the emergency room and diagnosed. She had a spinal tap and started chemotherapy on Thursday. Now she is heavily sedated and unable to talk. The first session of chemo will continue for two more days and then there will be a break before the second round. During that time, they hope to get her stable enough to move her to Texas Tech University Medical Center in Lubbock, close to home. I have spoken to her nurse and her father and they say that she is getting better, not worse.
I am starting this update chain for all of us who care about her and want to know how she's progressing. Any time I hear news, I will forward the information along to all of you. If you know anyone else who would like to be on this list, please send his/her name and e-mail address to me and I will include him/her on it.
I told her father that we are all thinking of her and praying for her and he was very glad to hear it. He also said that any cards could be sent to the house in New Mexico and he would make sure she got them. Her home address is:
Jenny Doenges
2008 Enloe
Clovis, NM 88101-8683
Also, Julie Ann (jules1) and I would like to compile personal messages from everyone. Please send me whatever you want to say to Jenny and I will put it all together in a big package for her.
This is all the information I have for now. I think we all know that Jenny is a fighter and that she will pull through this. She needs our love and support though. Thank you all for everything.
Love,
Carina (Rina)
#2
Jenny's friend Krista Walker (known as Karissa on Alamak) has done a lot of research on the type of leukemia that Jenny has. She graciously compiled it into an organized overview for us. Here is what she found:
Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia is a malignant disorder basically involving the production of mature white blood cells by the bone marrow. The production abnormality results in the accumulation of leukemic blood cells in both the bone marrow and the bloodstream.
Leukemia affects the production of white blood cells, causing them to reproduce uncontrollably at rapid rates, crowding out healthy cells already existing. (White blood cells help defend the body against disease-producing bacteria.) These abnormal white cells take over the bone marrow often with sudden blasts, and spill over into the bloodstream. Hence the term "leukemia," which is Greek for "White Blood," is formed. The bone marrow becomes unable to produce sufficient levels of red blood cells and platelets, while the white cell production becomes so rapid that these cells do not reach the level of maturity necessary to perform their infection-fighting functions. Often leukemic cells infiltrate all major organs. Kidneys become impaired. The liver becomes enlarged, as does the spleen, causing them to become over-reactive. When the spleen becomes enlarged, it can actually do its job "too well," killing aging red blood cells and platelets, further reducing the number of these already decreased cells.
CML (Jenn's disorder) specifically involves the over-production of granulocytes that evolve for the myeloid committed cell. Since granulocytes are the most mature white cells produced in the bone marrow, CML is considered a slowly progressing disease. It does progress, however, and if left untreated will advance to it's chronic leukemic stage.
I hope that has given you some more insight on CML and how it works. This next part is to give you an overview of symptoms and treatments.
CML affects adults between the ages of 30-50. It is VERY rare for children and adolescents to get this disorder. Some symptoms are weakness, fatigue, dizziness, irritability, headaches, loss of appetite and the most common symptom - unexplained weight loss. The spleen becomes enlarged, giving you a sense of "fullness" with no real desire to eat. This disease is NOT contagious and can NOT be transmitted.
In the initial stage of CML, the patient can live for years virtually symptom-free. CML is controlled by chemotherapeutic drugs taken orally. This phase usually lasts only 3 years, but has been known to last up to 10.
The most successful treatment for CML in younger patients is a bone marrow transplant. What this is, is as follows: Aggressive chemo and radiation is used to defeat leukemia, then they replace the marrow destroyed by the treatments with that of a compatible donor. The best outcome is when a bone marrow transplant takes place less than 2 years from the diagnosis date.
Another treatment is autologous, where the patient becomes his own donor. The patient's healthy blood or marrow stem cells are removed and kept for a short period of time while the patient receives high- dosed therapy. Then the healthy blood or marrow stem cells are returned to the patient.
Researchers do not know that the disease has any apparent hereditary pattern, nor is there evidence of any ethnic, dietary or environmental risk factor.
ONE THING THAT CAN LET US REST AT EASE is that there is a lot of stuff that can be done to support the CML patient and they are rarely in any pain or physical suffering.
I hope this overview has been of help to many of you. If you have any questions whatsoever of this disorder, you can definitely e-mail me at karissagal@hotmail.com. Until then, let's all put Jenny and her family in our prayers.
~Krista Walker~
I thank Krista very much for this informative update. Jenny's father informed me that she has probably had the disease for four to six months. She had often complained of not being hungry or able to eat (probably due to the spleen, as Krista said). The good part is that 70-80% of CML sufferers go into remission. Those are pretty good odds and Jenny is going to be in that percentage. I know she will. Keep praying.
Love,
Carina
#3
Krista and I were thinking that maybe all of you have some questions about CML or Jenny or anything. We want you to be fully informed on everything so if you have any questions at all (and remember - there's no such thing as a stupid question) please address them to both of us. We are now Jenny's reporters and we will respond as quickly as possible. And if you have anything you would like to be put on the update, forward it along to me - anything you want - a funny story, support message for all of us, ANYTHING. I think the point here is to keep Jenny in mind. I know I have a zillion funny anecdotes I could share because we're both so nutty! She is, after all, our Nutty Buddy!
SO... keep the e-mail coming and we'll keep you posted! AND... don't forget to send cards to her house!
Jenny Doenges
2008 Enloe
Clovis, NM 88101-8683
Thanks to those of you who have already sent me their personal messages for her! And to those of you who haven't yet... GET CRACKING!!! The sooner I get that out to her, the sooner she will know how many of us care about her! And I know that will be incentive for her to fight harder!
Love you all!
Love,
Carina
#4
Well, I don't really have any "new" news tonight. I guess I just want to say thank you to everyone who has given me their personal messages. I'm glad this has brought us all together, though God knows I would trade it all for a healthy, happy Jenny. I think we need to keep in contact to help us stay strong and help Jenny through this too. Daily, I get e-mail addresses of more people who care and I am eternally grateful for that. I'm trying to catch everyone up on old updates, too. I hope this is helping you as much as it is me. Thank you so much for all the support you have all given me. I could not keep going if it was not for you. Keep praying...
Love,
Carina
#5
Once again, Krista has worked a miracle! She has opened a hotmail account just for Jenny info. The address is: Regarding_Jenny@hotmail.com. Though I am still going to send all updates from my account here, I would appreciate it if you would direct all personal messages and questions to the Regarding_Jenny address. We will both be checking it periodically. I have gotten lots of personal messages for Jenny, but I want to be sure I have most of them before I send them out to her. And she needs them ASAP. I believe today is her last day in the first round of chemotherapy, so she should be awake soon. Wouldn't it be nice for her to get a big bundle of get-well-wishes? And don't forget, we want her to be well enough to transport to Lubbock in these next six days before she starts round 2. It will do her good to be closer to home.
So get those messages out to Regarding_Jenny@hotmail.com. Our Nutty Buddy needs us! And don't hesitate to ask any questions you might have.
Thanks a million!
Love,
Carina
#6
Padington has just sent me some inspirational quotes and poems he found. I would like to share them with all of you to remind you that we must keep our heads up and look forward to the day Jenny is back with us. He deserves a big thank you for finding all of these. Love you paddy!
Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while
and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same.
-Source Unknown
The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a
thousand heads bowing in prayer.
-Ghandi
There are high spots in all of our lives, and most of them come about
through encouragement from someone else.
-George Adams
In the darkest hour the soul is replenished and given strength to
continue and endure.
-Heart Warrior Chosa
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience by
which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say
to yourself, "I lived through this horror, I can take the next thing
that comes along."
-Eleanor Roosevelt
Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the
overcoming of it.
-Helen Keller
From what we get we can make a living, what we give, however, makes a
life.
-Arthur Ashe
The task ahead of us is never as great as the power behind us.
-Alcoholics Anonymous
Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with
what happens to him.
-Aldous Huxley
Failure? I never encountered it. All I ever met were temporary
setbacks.
-Dottie Walters
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are
doing it.
-Anonymous
Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile
at your children, smile at each other - it doesn't matter who it is -
and that will help you to grow up in a greater love for each other.
-Mother Teresa
Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have
to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your
subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace.
A soul generated by love.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower,
the one word that will protect you from the grief at the center of
your dream...
-"Variation on the Word Sleep" - Margaret Atwood
Sickness
-Linda Hogan
If we are all one,
then in my hand
is the mortal enemy,
the one that felled the forest,
struck the fire,
the doctors of torture
living at the edge of sanity
that, like broken glass,
does not call itself sharp.
In sickness are the stories of a broken world.
It is the wedged cut in a tree,
the strike between match and wood.
It is the way children of burned deer
walk out of the fire.
I am the child of humans,
I have witnessed their destruction inside myself,
and crawled along the ground
among fallen trees
and long grasses. Down there,
I saw disease.
It closed doors, turned on light,
It owned water and land.
It believed in its country
and followed orders.
It went to work.
It tried to take my tongue.
But these words,
these words are proof
there is healing.
The Weighing
-Jane Hirshfield
The heart's reasons
seen clearly,
even the hardest
will carry
its whip-marks and sadness
and must be forgiven.
As the drought-starved
land forgives
the drought-starved lion
who finally takes her,
enters willingly then
the life she cannot refuse,
and is lion, is fed,
and does not remember the other.
So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.
The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.
I know you are all praying and that it is helping. But we all need to think of each other too, and pray for Jenny's family and friends as well as for her. Hopefully, these words from those who have been there will help all of you to cope with this situation. Jenny's done with round 1 of chemo! Yay!
Keep those personal messages coming. I have a grand total of: 14... and there are 40 people getting this e-mail! Don't forget... Regarding_Jenny@hotmail.com.
Love,
Carina
#7
I just called the hospital and the nurse said that Jenny was "the same." Of course, they're not allowed to give out any information over to the phone, especially not to "a friend" as opposed to "a relative." She did say that Jenny's father was headed home to New Mexico to rest. I tried calling there, but no answer yet. I'll try again later and keep you posted.
In the interim, padington has written a poem for us. Thanks again paddy! You're the best! *hugs*
It's times like these,
when we need to keep,
Our heads up.
It gets hard
and at times hope seems so far...
away....
But we have to be strong
and know it won't be long,
till we will see
Our Nutty Buddy...
JENNY
Hopefully, I will have news soon. And you will all hear it as soon as I do (well, within five minutes at least). Keep sending personal messages and cards to the house. Her dad's there to get them for her!
Love,
Carina