Tell the Bees

Archive for August 1st, 2006

Lina Update: Major Setback

Dear family and friends,

Lina’s stem cell transplant ordeal was not successful and her lymphoma has returned.

Since she came home from Boston in late June we’ve been through a lot – strange rashes, high fevers, bad blood cell counts and trips to the emergency room but the docs couldn’t figure out what was going wrong in her recovery – until Sunday.

Last week she started feeling dizzy – 2 days later she was having major balance problems. So on Friday they did a MRI scan of her brain and told us Sunday that she had two fast-growing tumors in her brain. One in her cerebrum which was affecting her balance and one in her frontal lobe.

It’s gotten worse – and she now can barely walk.

We spent all day Monday at Dana Farber. Tomorrow we go back – and at 7am on Thursday they will start a 4-week ‘clinical trial’ chemo drug mix hoping to halt the tumor growth. If all goes well, they will do a month of whole brain radiation in September. Because she and her blood still haven’t recovered from the transplant process they are ‘concerned’ about more chemo treatments at this stage – but have no choice.

So, it sucks.

We welcome all positive energies, prayers, whatever.

And Lina welcomes phone calls, e-mails and visitors.
207-799-2197
lina@maine.rr.com

We’ll keep you all updated,

love,
Craig

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