Elinor’s Story

Site created on May 4, 2023

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.

On May 1st Elinor was not feeling well and we took her to see the Dr.  At this visit we had bloodwork done and received a call in the afternoon to bring her to the hospital to have her admitted.  After test results came back, Elinor was diagnosed on Tuesday with AML Leukemia.  Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a cancer of the blood.  On May 3rd, Elinor had surgery to insert a port and had a bone marrow biopsy done.  On Thursday May 4th, she began her first chemotherapy treatment.  She will be at the hospital for several weeks/months receiving treatment . (Month of May). Elinor is 13 years old. She is in 7th grade and loves to swim, ride horses and go to summer camp (Camp Cedarbrook). Currently after a week at home, Elinor is back at the hospital for Round 2 of treatment. After a second “week” at home and another two biopsy’s Elinor is now starting Round 3 at the hospital. Round 3 is done and she had to have her port removed but she left the hospital on 8/26. Elinor’s care is now going to move from Albany Medical Center to Boston Children’s and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She is going to be getting a bone marrow stem cell transplant on September 19th. Elinor has completed her BMT treatment at the hospital and was discharged on October 26th. She will remain in the Boston area for a few more weeks as we are outpatient at the Jimmy Fund Clinic at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

 We will continue to update her journey for everyone here.  Thank you so much for reading and we are so grateful for your prayers, friendships, and your care and concern.   For more questions, please email us.  danwinnie@verizon.net We are not able to answer your e-mails right away but will try to when we have a free moment.  Thanks.


Love,
Winnie , Dan, Elinor and Caleb

Newest Update

Journal entry by Winnie Meade

        Last Friday 4/19/24  we went to Boston for Elinor's regular visit at Jimmy Fund Clinic and then back to Boston Children's Hospital for her pulmonary function test.  As of now, everything looks good for Elinor.  We are fast approaching her 1 year anniversary of the Acute Myeloid Leukemia diagnosis and her stay from May1st to August at the Children's hospital at Albany Medical Center.  It was this time last year that we noticed that Elinor was very very tired.  This was enough for us to go see her primary care doctor who told us to check her immediately into the emergency room.  She never left the hospital until around July for a short day or two home.  Each time we had chemo, she was back for several weeks until August. It has been a challenging year for sure.  We are grateful to the team of nurses and doctors at Albany Medical Center Melodies clinic, and also all of Elinor's nurses and doctor's at Dana Farber and at Boston Children's Hospital.  She had many surgeries along the way.  We also want to thank everyone who has helped our family this year.  Thank you to those who prayed for us, encouraged us, sent us e-mails, cards, art supplies, Amazon boxes, or dropped by the hospital to visit us, gave us gift cards, who helped care for Caleb, gave rides, and donated to our meal train and brought us dinner.   Thank you, thank you,  and thank you!  We can't say enough thanks to all the cards and gifts sent to Elinor.  All of your kindness this year has made all the difference in helping keep her spirits up and continuing on this crazy journey.   Thanks especially to our parents and siblings who helped us keep our home organized and our son fed and rides to school.  Thank you so much for all that you've done.  Another special thanks goes out to my friend Ruth, who taught my class in my place when I was in Boston.   It still is not easy to think where we were a year ago, even 6 months ago.  We have just passed Elinor's 6 months since her Bone Marrow Transplant (September 19th 2024) so we really want to thank our anonymous donor.  This person's selfless act of donation has saved Elinor's life and for that we are most grateful. We also want to thank the organizations, One Mission and The Boston House, who let us stay at the Carriage house apartment in Brookline from a few days in August all the way until December 4th, when we made our way home.  Most of all we want to thank God for all He has done.  He has listened to so many prayers from around the world.  People let me know that friends and family from around the world were praying for her healing.  We continue to ask for minimal graft vs. host disease, and that she does not get sick.  It will still take several months until she is ready to go anywhere indoors but as the summer comes, we will have get togethers outside if the weather is nice.  Our family would love to greet you all at some point very very soon!

Thanks.

Love to all,

Winnie & Dan

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