Donor Found!

As of 5:00 AM this morning, Michalla is back in the hospital starting her last (we hope forever!!) round of chemo.  It is going to be pretty intense all week. Today she is getting 3 doses of chemo.  Each dose lasts 2 hours.  This is much stronger chemo that she has gotten in the past. Within about an hour of receiving the first dose she was already feeling sick.  Usually it takes a few days for the chemo to really get into your system and to see side effects. She will receive chemo through Thursday then have a rest day on Friday and then on Saturday MICHALLA WILL GET HER BONE MARROW TRANSPLANT.  A DONOR HAS BEEN FOUND!  Actually the donor that was going to donate last week has been cleared and is now donating this Friday so Michalla will receive his marrow the following day.

Her new birthday, as they call it around here, will be May 3rd.  This is the day she is given a new life.  This is literally true.  The bone marrow doctor came in today with the results of her surgery on Friday and said that she does not have any bone marrow at all in her body right now.  It has been a miracle she hasn't gotten sick this last month.  Once in a while the body, after so much chemo, just can't recover.  She has received 6 rounds of chemo total and every time up until now the body was eventually able to make new bone marrow after it got wiped out.  Well I guess this time, the body said "enough is enough". We are very fortunate that the donor is available.  At this point there was no other option.  Her body was not ever going to make new bone marrow.  That explains why her counts were never coming up.  They were never going to come up.  Thank goodness for the selfless act of this 27 year old man that has never met Michalla.  Because of him, she has a chance to live.

To complicate things, Michalla had to have another unplanned surgery on her cyst on Friday.  A big thank you to Dr. Skarda who was willing to look at Michalla without an appointment and perform surgery within a few hours of seeing her knowing that it had to happen to before she started her transplant chemo today.  I definitely saw the Lord's hand in how everything happened on Friday and was once again reminded that the Lord is very aware and is in charge.  If the transplant had happened last week as planned then this problem wouldn't have been discovered and it would have been very dangerous if not life threating to Michalla.  Thank goodness the Lord is in charge with his all knowing vision and not us. 

Thank you to everyone that has prayed and continues to pray for Michalla and our family.   Prayers are answered.  I have a strong testimony that the Lord has heard every prayer said on her behalf.