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Friday, July 31, 2009

Further details on vishal's progress

Vishal has been diagonsed with "mucocyst": infection in which organs from intestine to mouth are affected. The sedatives has been stopped to see how his body organs behave. His blood pressure is low, and additionally fluctuating rapidly. Doctors are trying to see the cause of this by trial-and- error which means they will turn off the supporting systems one by one. Today they turned off dialysis to see if the blood pressure stabilizes and kidney functions normally. All this suggest that he is still very much in the danger zone but the doctors are hopeful of a recovery.
Vishal's lungs are recovering. He is under 55% ventilation now which is a big improvement from 100% last week. However, there is a long way to go. Swati and her parents, her brother and Vishal's paternal aunts, uncle and cousin are there with him. Please keep praying so that we can get some more positive news.

Vishal's update July 31, 2009

Vishal's condition has improved from yesterday evening. Though he still not out of danger but doctors are positive about his betterment. The external support systems has been removed, but he is still under ventilation. He has been given sedatives and artificially induced paralytic drugs to keep his organ functions minimal. Please continue to keep him and his family in your prayers.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Vishal's condition is very critical.

Hello friends, I know most of you are waiting for updates about Vishal's progress. I am writing this in a very agitated state of mind. Vishal's condition is very critical. His lungs are not working, his kidneys have failed. He is on a ventilator. The doctors have given him drugs so as to control the supply of oxygen to different organs. He is in a induced coma kind of state. He is hanging in there fighting for his life. To support him, his entire family is with him. Most of you are aware about his journey since the time he found out about his illness. This is the moment in this journey when he needs all of us the most. I implore you to keep him in your thoughts and prayers. Your prayers are very powerful, please use them to help vishal triumph in this battle. Vishal, Swati and their family need our support and strength to endure this harrowing situation. Please keep them in your prayers as well.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—



Thank You!

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Recovering from Transplant - Day +6

Today Vishal is Day +6 from the transplant day. His counts are at bottom. He is getting blood and platelet transfusion as needed. He is having fever and mouth sores which is very common after the transplant. He is extremely fatigued. He is on bunch of antibiotics to prevent more infections to come. He is not able to eat or drink much so he is put on IV Nutrition.

Doctors are saying that the donor's stem cells will take few days to reach Vishal's bone marrow. Once the stem cells are in bone marrow and they are ready to produce the new blood , that time there are chance of getting GVHD(Graft Vs Host Disease) where Vishal's immune system and Donor's cells might attack each other. He is already on medication to reduce GVHD.

Do put your comments as Vishal loves to hear from you.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Transplant Went Smoothly

Vishal's stem cell transplant went smoothly. There was no reaction. He is doing good right now.

Doctors are saying Donor's cells would start producing new blood cells at around 18th day. They would be taking extreme precautions during this time to avoid any infection while his immune system is totally knocked out. He would be in isolation till that time.

He should continue doing good with your prayers and blessings.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Getting Ready For Transplant - Thanks to The Donor

Vishal has to go for 2 days of high dose chemo and 3 days of radiation to wipe out entire bone marrow. This will kill all good and bad blood cells and make a room for donor's cell. His chemo is over and tomorrow is the last day for radiation. He is having the usual side effects like nausea and vomitting.

It was long pending to thank the anonymous donor on the blog. (though we thank that person all the time in our thoughts). We are so fortunate to find a person who doesn't know Vishal and still is ready to donate the stem cells which can save Vishal's life. God bless that person. I will never have enough words to express my gratitude towards that person. Donor is the angel of our life. I hope that more and more people become aware of stem cell donation and every patient in need finds a donor to save his/her life.

Thank you all for still hanging in with us.
--Swati
(Vishal's wife)


Sunday, July 12, 2009

Admitted to hospital for transplant

Vishal has been admitted to the hospital for his transplant. His first day is very uneventful as the hospital staff has not yet found a room for Vishal. He is temporarily shifted to another room. Probably chemo will start sometime in the evening on Sunday(12-Jul-09).

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Transplant Schedule






Results from Bone Marrow Biopsy are not so good. Blasts (Cancer Cells) have started showing up. Vishal has relapsed again.

Doctors had two choices. One option was to give one more round of chemotherapy (around 1 month cycle) and then wait to recover and then go for the transplant. But there are few hurdles in this option. It is harder to achieve remission after relapsing so soon and in case different chemo works then during the recovery period cancer might relapse again as it did this time.

Another option was to prepone the transplant. In this case, there won't be any round of chemo. But as part of transplant, the patient undergoes 2 days of high dose chemo and 3 days of radiation which is called conditioning regime. This conditioning regime should be able to get rid of blasts as its job is to completely empty the bone marrow to make a room for new Donor cells.

Doctor has decided to go with second option. Vishal is getting admitted for transplant on 11th July. Donor has also agreed for the dates which is the great part of this. Vishal had his Heart, Lung and many more tests to see all the organs in the body are in good shape to withstand the transplant. He had Root canal done as part of dental check up. Now he is enjoying the last few days with family before going for the transplant. He went out for small summer outing with his family. There are few pics here.