Joe’s Story

Site created on December 12, 2018



Hi friends,


My aunt suggested I create a page here to share details on my current situation, so here goes...

tl;dr - I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia on Thursday (12/6).  I'm currently staying at UW-Madison hospital and will be here until my expected discharge on 1/7. The tentative plan is for a week of chemo and then three weeks of in-hospital recovery, which will be followed by four months of maintenance out-patient appointments. 

Here's how we got here - I've been dealing with what I believe to be allergy-related issues since June. This has included swelling of my eyes and some random bumps on my legs. Heidi and I were blaming work I did replacing our HVAC system this summer and inhaling 100 year old dust as the potential culprit. I've been visiting a bunch of doctors for these allergy-like issues and trying different meds for the past few months with varying degrees of success. In November, I spent a weekend wearing knee pads while removing the old HVAC vents and replacing floor boards. When I took them off at the end of the day, I noticed significant bruising behind my knees and also marks on my legs from my knees on down. Heidi thought that maybe I had the pads on too tight and popped a pile of blood vessels. In any case, it looked like a mess and after a few days we decided I should make an appointment to have it checked out.

I went to my appointment on the 6th fully expecting my leg issue to be somehow related to the other allergy stuff. I figured the doctor would put me on prednisone and that was indeed the general consensus from the checkup. Side note - they had me on a short run of prednisone back in August for my eye issue. That stuff works wonders; I was at DEFCON while on it and it cleared up my eyes, gave me tons of energy and seemed to make me immune to hang-overs. Unfortunately, I got a call after leaving the doctor appointment and on my way to work that the initial analysis was wrong, my blood test showed a very low platelet count and I needed to head to the ER.

The UW ER is now branded the BerbeeWalsh Department of Emergency Medical. It's kinda cool to see the "Berbee" name everywhere, since I started my career sitting only a few feet from Jim Berbee. Of course, he went on to build a great IT company, eventually selling it to pursue being a doctor and recently donated a significant amount of money to the UW. The doctors at the ER performed a number of additional blood draws and analysis. They eventually informed me that I had a blood cancer, likely Leukemia. I learned the leg marks that originally led me to make an appointment are called Petechiae and are due to the disease and my low platelet count. I've led a charmed life until now with little hardship. Unfortunately, this moment sucked and hearing this news was likely the worst experience I've ever had.

Heidi, Emma and Claire have been providing me amazing loving support. My years of work-related travel have allowed Heidi to refine her Joe's-not-home-for-a-bit survival skills. We also have a treatment plan, which has helped significantly from an emotional perspective. For now, we're sticking to that plan and working towards a full recovery.

Newest Update

Journal entry by Joe Mondloch

My cousin Becky has done missionary work in Kenya over the years. Her friend Johnstone is the principal of a school there and his son was recently diagnosed with aplastic anemia. It sounds like the treatment for this is similar to mine - a bone marrow transplant. Unfortunately, Johnstone's family does not have insurance and they need to travel to India for the treatment.

I am incredibly fortunate to live near to Madison and have access to high-quality care, in addition to having great health insurance. The idea of dealing with this disease without such resources must be terrifying. Becky and her friend Tracy have created a Go Fund Me page to help out Johnstone's son Andrew: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-save-andrews-life-in-kenya. My hope is that together we can assist Andrew get the transplant he needs.

Thanks,
Joe
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