A little background…
Jenny started feeling like something was wrong in February. Her blood numbers were down farther than the previous few months, so over the next few weeks we monitored them.
April 2026 – Jenny had a bone marrow biopsy and it confirmed MDS (high risk). This condition is more than likely caused by all of the Chemo and Radiation and Medications over the last 18 years while battling Multiple Myeloma.
May 7, 2026 – We met with Dr. Chan at Moffitt in Tampa: the plan is: Jenny will begin a Chemotherapy called Vidaza.
Each round of Vidaza is seven days of infusions which only take a few minutes and then off for 21 days.
May 13, 2026 – meeting with Doctor Baidas, in Orlando at Orlando Health
June 8, 2026 – 1st day of Chemotherapy of Vidaza, she did very well with the chemo, the biggest side effect that we agreed on was extreme fatique.
Throughout the summer, Jenny did very well on the chemo of Vidaza. Her blood numbers kept dropping throughout the three sessions of chemo so she ended up probably receiving blood transfusions and or platelets at least five times maybe six from June to August.
She would know when her numbers were low because she would be out of breath and just extremely tired. But, we always had to wait until her numbers got down below 7.1 on the hemoglobin and they really never gave us a platelet number but anytime it was lower than 15. She was probably getting platelets.
By the first week of August, we had heard that the donor had been found. Actually, they have four donors. One was a 10 out of 10 match but the one they went with was an 8 out of 8 match, a 35 year-old male.
They’re very secretive of who the donor is and where they live but as of this writing, we have been given at least the information of a 35-year-old male and probably lives in Europe. We understand we’ll be able to get more information,if the donor agrees, in one year.
So the transplant date has been scheduled for October 9th. All of the testing will start beginning now at the end of August that includes a bone marrow biopsy and cardiologist test, clearance from her dentist for infections, a pulmonary test, a CT, a PET scan.
September 1, 2026 – We learned this week that she can stop the Vidaza chemotherapy. Evidently it did what it was supposed to do and also there’s a note that the third round she only had to do five days instead of seven days, which was good. She didn’t have to do two extra days of chemotherapy, but now it’s stopped.
We also have learned that the transplant has been moved out till the second week of October, due to the donor not being able to get tested in time,so everything is on hold till October 9 is when she gets admitted.
October 4, 2026 – We continue to get ready to move to Tampa for 100 or so days, we have secured a great little condominium in Tampa Palms, about 15 minutes from Moffitt.