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Last most of you probably heard, Tess was potentially going to get a kidney and stem cell bone marrow transplant. That plan got put on a temporary hold for now but Aubree, Tim, Laurie and I are all excitedly waiting to see who is the best STEM Cell match since we all swabbed our mouths just in case![...]
April
Tess started her chemo treatment in March. Her oncologist described her treatment as "aggressive" and she was correct because it killed a lot of the cancer cells called light chain cells. As great as that news was, the amount of light chain cells that needed to filter through Tess's kidneys got blocked up resulting to her suddenly losing some cognitive function and mobility function and so we brought her to the hospital to find out that her kidneys were working at 5% functionality. She was hospitalized at MGH in intensive care for a few days as they did dialysis to filter out all of the light chains clogging her kidneys. She then was brought to the MGH Cancer Floor where she remained there for chemo treatment, close monitoring, and some more dialysis. She was there a total of 17 days... let's just say that Tess missed her home and her puppies A LOT! We visited often and even got a fun visit from Aubree and Cooper when they were in town! After 17 days, Tess left the hospital with the plan to do a lighter version of chemo and she was to go to dialysis 3 times a week. [...]
February
It was around February 1st when Tess started to feel sick. Her back hurt, she was tired, and something was really off. It was when she was peeing blood that she decided to make a trip to urgent care who then told her to go to the ER immediately. Tess and Jeff went to the hospital where they learned her calcium levels were high, she was dehydrated, and her kidney was functioning at 15%. The hospital was able to get her levels to a normal rate but after a CT scan and blood testing, it was discovered that Tess had a blood cancer called Multiple Myeloma and it was stage 3. Tess and Jeff found an amazing oncologist in MGH that specializes in Multiple Myeloma, Dr Cirstea. Together they started putting together a plan of action to fight this cancer.[...]
