Family vacation with Kalli, Gillian, Dan, Cindy, Keegan at Diamond Head, Hawaii, July 2016

Dan Knak

First post: Dec 3, 2016 Latest post: Jul 20, 2019

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.


Dear Family and Friends,


Dan truly appreciates all your prayers, calls, cards and letters since he was diagnosed with Leukemia, (specifically Acute Lymphoblastic/Lymphoma "A.L.L.") on October 20th.  Dan is currently at United Hospital, Oncology Unit 4500, St. Paul.  They move him to a different room on the Unit every two weeks.  For this reason, please use our home mailing address:  1800 Tierney Drive, Hastings, MN 55033.  Also, to increase communication efficiency Dan has turned his phone off and only checks it for business calls.  It really is taxing on Dan's strength to talk on the phone due to low red blood counts so less oxygen makes it tough for him to speak loudly and at times the chemo causes a thick tongue.


Dan started with chemo on Oct. 27th.  The Doctors think he had an adverse reaction to one of the chemo drugs.  As best the Doctors can determine, the chemo drug disrupted the communication between his nerves and muscles.  Dan described it as "one minute he was fine and getting ready to go home and the next minute his muscles felt like jelly and he could not move." 


From October 31st to November 10th, Dan's muscle movement was very limited.  He had the Oncologists, Neurologists, Infection Disease and Internal Medicine Doctors all scratching their heads trying to figure out our Dan.  Each day we were blessed with the good news all the tests were Negative for anything other than he has Leukemia which can be SUCCESSFULLY treated.  Based on all your prayers and his sheer will, Dan went from limited movement to dancing with his Nurse on Sat. the 12th.  Now, the Doctors were really baffled, but smiling.


The second round of chemo started on Nov. 17th.  After 4 weeks in the Hospital, on Nov. 25th, Dan discharged home.  On Wednesday, Dan had a regular visit with his Oncologist.  Dan had developed an abscess which again, required hospitalization.  The Doctors now believe the steroids probably caused the abscess from the beginning, but the antibiotics were containing its growth explaining all the high temps but no visible cause.  He discharged home with no antibiotics so the abscess had a chance to start growing again.  The Doctors all confirm his abscess is very common for A.L.L. patients due to their low immune system.


Dan's Physician just confirmed he will have a procedure to drain the abscess tomorrow.  His Oncology Nurses have taken absolutely amazing care of him from the beginning.  From day one he had them laughing when he walked into his room and took a long look around and exclaimed "where is the beer fridge?"

CaringBridge is a nonprofit social network dedicated to helping family and friends communicate with and support loved ones during a health journey. Learn more about CaringBridge.

To interact with Dan’s website, sign in or register today.

By registering with CaringBridge, you will join over 300,000 people a day who are supporting friends and family members.

Sign In Or Register
SVG_Icons_Back_To_Top
Top