Marlene Thul

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. Here is a little bit of background on Marlene's diagnosis. She was diagnosed with Myelodysplastic Syndrome on June 21 2017. It is a rare form of cancer they call pre-leukemia. Basically her bone marrow can no longer produce healthy blood cells. It is most likely caused from the chemo she had 20 years ago when she had breast cancer. It is not curable and the treatment is extremely tough on people, especially someone her age. She will have to undergo some sort of treatment for the rest of her life. Currently her treatment is that she will undergo chemotherapy for 5 days, then have 3 weeks off, and then repeat the cycle. During her off weeks she will most likely require blood and platelet transfusions. Her first chemotherapy treatment was June 26-30. She did pretty well that week and tolerated the chemo quite well. However, on July 7, at day 7 after the last chemo day, she required hospitalization and has been in the hospital ever since. Her blood levels have been extremely low. The doctors tell us this is normal and expected, but it has been very scary. As of today, July 13 she is feeling a little bit better and hopes to be out of the hospital this weekend. We will update this site as best we can so you can all be informed as to how she is doing. We/She appreciates all the love and support that you have given us so far on this journey, and we look forward to hearing all of your words of encouragement for mom and she continues along this difficult path.