Hollan and I arrived in Cincinnati on April 16. She had a lot of tests, scans, and lab work for her surgery on April 25th. We enjoyed a quiet weekend in an Airbnb, visited the aquarium, had lunch at a restaurant on the river, and had manicures and pedicures.
The pre surgery tests revealed that Hollan’s kidney function was critically low. To protect her kidneys Dr Pressey decided that she would not do round 6 of chemo and round 5 would only include 4 drugs instead of the usual 5.
Hollan's HIPEC surgery went as planned and was close to 9 hours long. She spent two nights in ICU before moving to the post-op floor. About a week after her surgery she had round 5 of chemo. Her last round! We stayed in the hospital for 15 days.
We expected to return home to Birmingham for the month before the Stem Cell Transplant process. A few days after her surgery we were told that she would need to stay in Cincinnati so that her kidney function could be closely monitored. We decided that the only way to make it work was to find a dog friendly Airbnb and bring our dogs here for the month.
Just 5 days after checking into the Airbnb Hollan woke up with a high fever. She was admitted to the hospital where it was discovered that she had a bacterial infection and very low blood counts making it impossible for her body to fight the infection.
She is currently in the hospital for a minimum 14 days until her pain and the infection are controlled.
We had to make the sad and disappointing decision to send the dogs home and cancel plans for our family to join us.
The transplant has been pushed to possibly mid-June which would have us home sometime in August… 4 long months away from our home, family, dogs, and friends. Not the plan that we expected, but so very thankful to be at this incredible hospital with the amazing team of doctors taking care of Hollan.
It isn’t all disappointing news…the post surgery pathology report showed NO EVIDENCE OF DISEASE!!! She is in clinical remission much to Dr Pressey’s surprise! AND her kidney function, although still very poor, is stable and showing some slight improvement. We are almost there…just have to get through the rough 4-6 week stem cell transplant and then a few months of immunotherapy (possibly at UAB) and we can start to put this behind us.
We couldn’t have made it this last month without the constant support of our family and friends. We feel so loved.
🦋🩵
