Rene'’s Story

Site created on July 9, 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.

Newest Update

Journal entry by Danette Sanchez

Today, unfortunately, was not a very positive one.  We are still optimistic and praying for her recovery. 😇 

For all you medical people out there, I may have slightly messed up the descriptions the doctor was saying to us. It was a lot to take in today.

She continues to be the fighter that she is, but the fluid in her lungs is not clearing up.  This is very concerning because the ventilator is doing most of her breathing almost two weeks in.

She has DIC which is Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation. This means she forms clots where there isn't supposed to be clotting and is bleeding where she isn't supposed to bleed.  The biggest bleeding complication is in her brain right now.  

She had what looked like pneumonia 12 days ago, but her x-rays are not showing any change.  They treated it like pneumonia, but Leukemia can cause the x-ray to show what appears to be pneumonia and cause the oxygen levels to drop because they invade the lung tissue.  She has been on antibiotics the entire time, but it has not gotten better with the antibiotics or the chemotherapy.
 
They took her off the antibiotics, but she started up with a fever so she is back on.  They cannot find any infection despite numerous cultures, but are still treating her like she does.  She just doesn't have the immune system to clear out the infection.

Her body has created antibodies that are destroying the platelets they are giving her about as fast as they give them.  She has transfusion resistance.  No matter how many platelets they give her the counts don't change.  If her bone marrow recovers this could change, but as of now, it's a vicious cycle.

Hemoglobin is 7g
Platelets are 8
White counts are 0.1

As of now, she is not able to have a bone marrow transplant because she is not healthy enough.

Her lactic acid levels are very high and have not come down.

A few people have asked about donating blood.  You could of course do this and in her name, but the blood you donate will not go specifically to her.

Keep sending positive and healing thoughts and all of your prayers! 

We appreciate all of your texts and phone calls even though we may not be able to get back to you.  
XOXO - Danette and Jennifer
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