Relapse

Dear Family and Friends:

First of all, I want to thank everyone for all of your thoughts and prayers for our Mina Brigitta over the past year. Our family recently observed the 1-year anniversary of Mina Brigitta’s diagnosis by spending the weekend at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and spent a lot of time reflecting about the events of the past year and marveling again over the support we’ve received. We are eternally in your debt.

I am writing today because our Mina Brigitta is in need of your help more than ever. While we were enjoying the aquarium, we had no way of knowing that leukemia cells were once again growing in Mina Brigitta’s bone marrow. She developed a slight fever and cough last week, which caused our wonderful pediatrician to order a blood test. The counts came back alarmingly low, and the oncologists at UCSF asked us to come in for a bone marrow biopsy. Our worst fears were confirmed on Friday: Mina Brigitta’s cancer has relapsed.

Events moved quickly over the weekend. On Saturday they determined that the cause of her fever was respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. This is a common virus that causes no trouble for most people, but Mina Brigitta’s leukemia has suppressed her immune system and made it much more difficult for her to fight off. She has been very ill with fevers of 104, difficulty breathing, and extreme nausea. The doctors have been frank with us that starting chemotherapy for relapsed AML with RSV is far from an ideal scenario. However, they don’t feel they can delay the treatment for the two weeks it would require for her system to clear the virus. The next week or so will be critical; she really needs to knock down the virus before the chemo wipes out her white blood cells. Luckily, she’s feeling much better today, playing, talking and even eating for the first time since last Thursday. Hopefully this means she’s turned a corner.

She will be treated again at the UCSF Medical Center. Her treatment will consist of one round of chemo, which will require a 5-6 week hospitalization, similar to last year, and then a bone marrow transplant. With any luck, we will have a 2005 that is similar to 2004: five or so months of treatment, with few complications, that achieves remission and gives us some hope that she can go on to live a normal life. Unfortunately, this time the odds won’t be in our favor. Still, if she can kick this virus, we feel there is plenty of reason to hope for a good outcome.

This has been pretty hard on Keri and me, as I’m sure you can imagine, but we’re getting over the initial shock and at least we know the routine at UCSF. It’s pretty tiring to think about going through this all over again, but with enough help from our family and friends I know we’ll be able to do it. Please keep our Mina Brigitta in your thoughts and prayers.

Arne (for Keri, Mina Brigitta, and Isaac)