Funeral Details

The funeral is today (08/09/2009) at 5:30 PM in Philadelphia. The address is:-

Huff and Lakjer funeral home

701 Derstine Ave

Lansdale, pa, 19446

Phone - 215-855-3311

Time - 5:30 PM

In case you need any help or information please contact:-

Rahul - 267.319.5468.

Radhika - 267.319.5419.

Titas - 302.724.0101.

Please continue to keep everybody in your thoughts and prayers.

Thank You!

Vishal is no more.

Vishal passed away in the wee hours of this morning. Swati and her family are grief stricken. Please pray for them. We shall update the details later.

Rest in Peace Vishal.

Thank You!

Vishal's condition is extremely critical

Hello Friends,

Vishal's condition worsened last night. The amount of carbon dioxide in his body has increased to a very high level. The doctors have tried everything possible. They have now given up. Anything could happen any moment. Vishal's closest cousin and Swati's brother flew down to philadelphia this morning. All his near and dear ones are here. Swati and family are devastated. We are waiting for a miracle to happen. Please pray fervently for one.

Thank You!

Transplant - Day 21

Vishal is still critical. His condition is not getting any better. The only piece of good news is that his White blood cell count is increasing. His lungs are deteriorating by the day. lungs are the key to his speedy recovery. Once the lungs start recovering, it'd be very easy for his body to cope up with this adverse situation. Vishal has ARDS and the doctors suspect that the constant use of the ventilator caused the collapse yesterday. A tube has been inserted to support his lungs. He is still on a ventilator. At noon the settings were about 50% but now they have been moved up to 80% because the oxygen levels is his blood are going down. One of the hypotheses for the low oxygen levels is that his body has become used to sedatives which means that most of his organs are active and are using the already limited oxygen supply.

He is still on dialysis and his kidneys have not recovered. The term used to describe this condition is septic shock.

Coming back to the white blood cell count, the hope is that this would take care of all the infections in the body and reduce the complexity of the treatment. This will then allow the doctors to concentrate on treating his ARDS without having to worry too much about the side effects of various treatments. There is a long and arduous journey lying in front of Vishal, Swati and their family. All we want is for him take one tiny step a day without a set back; does not matter how long it takes to reach the destination. Please continue to cheer them and give your support. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. Here's hoping for a brighter tomorrow.

Thank You!

Transplant -Day 20......Battle is going on

Friends,
Vishal's fight is going on. Every morning we are hoping to hear something positive.
Today in the evening all of a sudden Vishal's one lung collapsed for a short period of time. Doctors took immediate action and pumped in oxygen and brought the whole situation under control. We thank the team of doctors for all their effort day and night and for standing by Vishal's family.Today once again the ventilation is set back to 100%. Doctor are suspecting that Vishal's body might get used to the sedatives and in that case sedatives will be ineffective. But they are still investigating the situation. Please pray to the almighty to give Swati ,Vishal and all their family members full strength to overcome the darkest days of their life.

Tranplant - Day 19

Vishal's condition deteriorated a little today. His body is so sensitive now that changing his bed spread caused some fluctuations in his blood pressure. The doctors plan to increase the dosage of sedatives to stabilize his condition a little. So far he has been relying on IV for essential nutrients. There's also a plan to feed him some food through a pipe. This was tried last week but did not work out well. His body was not capable of absorbing all the nutrients from the food and after a while they had to pump this out of his stomach. Hopefully, this should work out today. All this has been taking a huge toll on Swati and her family. So far Swati has been enduring this situation with great strength. Please send some positive thoughts and comments her way, it would immensely boost her confidence and faith. Everybody is waiting for one positive sign to lift up our hopes; a small bright signal that will drive the darkness away. Hopefully and God willingly we will see that very soon. Please continue to keep Vishal, Swati and their family in your thoughts and prayers.

Thank You!

Transplant - Day 18

Last night was uneventful. Vishal pulled it off smoothly however problems started cropping up today afternoon. His oxygen levels were going down. His ventilator settings were switched to 70% from 45%. The doctors are monitoring his condition. If the problem still persists then they would have to give him a heavier dose of sedatives. He is still on dialysis. The experiment revealed that his lungs are still injured/infected and healing has not begun fully yet. This is a setback and Swati is very disappointed. The doctors are of the opinion that Vishal still has a long way to go and that this is going to be a slow and arduous process. His White blood cell count is still close to 0. The doctors are hoping that once the count increases, the healing process will be faster. They plan to repeat this experiment tomorrow.

Thank you all for your immense support! Swati and her family are deriving a lot of strength from you. This is an extremely tough period for them and they are very grateful to you all for being on their side. Please continue doing so. God Bless!

Should Disappointment, parent of Despair,

Strive for her son to seize my careless heart;

When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air,

Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart:

Chase him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright,

And fright him as the morning frightens night!

Thank You!

Vishal doing better but tonight's critical

As per the doctors Vishal is doing much better today. There are definitely some signs of improvement. Until yesterday, his body was reacting to dialysis very unfavourably. His blood pressure would drop as soon as he was put on dialysis. Today, his body responded very favourably to dialysis. His blood pressure did not go down and a lot of fluid was pumped out of his body. His eyes were bulging out of his sockets because of this excess liquid, after the dialysis today they are now normal. He is still on a ventilator but the settings are at 50%. He is still on sedatives but the doctors have stopped giving him paralytic drugs which means his organs would start being active very soon. Tonight is a very critical test for him; if his body can cope up without the paralytic drugs, it would be a very important milestone for him. He still has mucositis. Every hour blood and mucus are being sucked out of his body.

Typically it takes about 18-28 days for the new marrow to activate and produce white blood cells. In Vishal's case the doctors want to hasten this process. They have given him shots that will kick start the production of white blood cells. The doctors are optimistic that this would help his body heal soon and also help him handle all the treatment related stress better.

Swati is being very strong through this ordeal. Helping her are her and Vishal's family. She is at the hospital 24X7 monitoring his progress and keeping close vigil. Please keep the whole family in your thoughts. Please do pray that Vishal pulls off tonight without any untoward incidents. Hopefully and God willingly tomorrow would be much brighter.

Thank You!

Vishal still critical (Transplant - Day 16)

Vishal's condition deteriorated last night. As per the plan, the doctors wanted to take him off sedatives and dialysis to see how his body copes up. They had reduced ventilation to 45% to see if his lungs can function under these circumstances. As soon as the sedatives started wearing off; the rest of the organs started functioning and his body required more oxygen than his lungs could supply. He started having breathing problems and the doctors had to act very fast. He is back on heavy sedation and now the rest of his organs are passive. He is back on a ventilator with 90% settings. He is back on dialysis as well.
If some of you are wondering how this problem has started, here's the story: After the chemotherapy and the marrow transplant, his white blood cell count was zero. During this time his body had contracted an infection which damaged his lungs and sent his kideneys into a shock. Since then his kidneys have not been functioning upto the mark. Though the infection was taken care of within 2 days, his lungs were damaged considerably. This is the reason why he is on a ventilator so that oxygen is supplied to his entire body.Since it is very hard to determine if his lungs are reviving/have revived, the doctors need to experiment and find out the progress by trial and error. They are regularly taking X-Rays of his lungs but the results could be misleading. X-Rays can only tell you that there is a problem but not the cause or the extent of the problem. There is no other option available to see the intensity of the problem. Since the oxygen supply is limited, the doctors do not want the rest of his organs to use it so much hence the heavy sedation. Medicines and fluid are being passed through intravenously which is causing a different set of problems. Since his kidneys are not functioning they are not able to pump excess fluid and toxins out of his body causing the fluid to enter into his lungs. The result being low oxygen levels in the body. The reason why dialysis is so important for him at present. Here when one more complication arises because dialysis also results in low blood pressure. Also, if his body gets used to dialysis, his kidneys might not recover fast. A day ago the doctors wanted to see if his lungs and kidneys have revived, hence he was taken off dialysis and ventilation. They also took him off sedatives to check if there was any progress. They also hoped that if his body is forced to cope with this adverse situation, his lungs and other organs might start working on a regular rythm. But this was not the case and his condition started deteriorating very fast once the rest of the organs started 'waking up'.
The key organ here is his lungs. Once they start functioning well, the path to recovery is fast.
The action plan for now is to keep him on sedatives, ventilation and dialysis today. His new bone marrow has not yet started producing cells. The doctors plan to activate and hasten this process. They are hoping that this will produce white blood cells which will ward off any infections. They are optimistic that this will also help his body recuperate.
His whole family is with him and providing him with support. He has not been conscious in the past 10 days. Every day has been more gruelling than the previous. Hopefully tomorrow will provide us all with a ray of hope. But for this to happen, we all need your support. Please keep him and his family in your prayers. You have the power to help him win this battle.
Thank You!