Thursday, 8/1/19

Good Thursday morning, my friends. I hope you all are doing well and that your week has been good to you, thus far. That said, I just wanted to share a bit of Morgan’s week with you, specifically yesterday’s appointment with her doctor.

After visiting with her oncologist we learned that Morgan’s bone marrow is currently operating at 30%, thanks to a cellular test that was performed on the bone marrow tissue. For those of you that may not be aware, your bone marrow’s job is to produce red blood cells that carry oxygen to the lungs, white blood cells that protect our bodies from infection and platelets that help our blood to clot. This is why Morgan has been needing so many blood/platelet transfusions and has had fevers often over the past month or so.

Given the fact that Morgan went through 3.5 years of harsh chemotherapy from 2009-2012, has been receiving chemotherapy over the past year, and underwent immunotherapy in the Fall, it has become a bit challenging for her body to recover . To put things into perspective, during her current course of treatment, Morgan was supposed to be on oral chemotherapy daily , receive IV chemotherapy once a week for 3 weeks and then have one week off before starting the cycle again. This was supposed to go on for 6 months with the plan of finishing this course of treatment in July. However, she finished her 2nd month in April and has not been able to resume IV chemotherapy due to her bone marrow not recovering.That said, we have learned that it is possible for your bone marrow to not recover resulting in a bone marrow transplant. However, her oncologist is hopeful that it will with time.

All that to say this, Morgan is in peace with all that is going on with her little body right now. In fact, while she sat wrapped up in her pretty pink blanket waiting on her oncologist to come in, I asked her what she was feeling in that moment and her response was “peaceful”. As a mother, that could not have brought me more joy as I sat beside her. My prayer, is that we can all learn from Morgan’s example and choose peace in the midst of the storms of life!

May you all know that you are loved and that the blessings of the Lord surround you! Take care!

Warmest Regards,

Salina Watson

Wednesday, 7/24/19

Hi, guys! Good Wednesday evening. I just wanted to send out a quick message to let you all know that Morgan had a bone marrow biopsy and spinal tap done earlier today. Although she handled the procedures like a champ, she has been pretty tired and has experienced pain off/on at the biopsy site, which is to be expected. That said, we should be receiving the results from the procedures in about a week. Please join our family in praying for answers. For it is the uncertainty of what is going on in her bone marrow that has us unsure of how we are to move forward.

Thank you for your continued love and support! We will plan on meeting you here next week once we have received the results and on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TeamMorganNWatson/, until then! Take care!

Warmest regards,

Salina Watson

Wednesday, 7/17/19

Destin, Florida – June 2019

Well, good Wednesday evening, my friends! It sure has been quite some time since I last connected with you guys on Morgan’s behalf through this blog. I hope you all have been following our daily post on her Facebook in the interim.

If so, you likely know that it has been a busy couple of months for Morgan. She was admitted into the hospital for 10 days, seen in the ER and readmitted for a short time in May. She has also had 2 clinic visits weekly since that time where she has received blood &/or platelet transfusions, IV antibiotics due to fevers and most recently an inhalation treatment to prevent her from developing pneumonia due to her low immune system.

With that said, Morgan was seen in the clinic today. After receiving her inhalation treatment, platelets and blood, we had a discussion with her physician in regards to her blood counts not showing any signs of recovery since her last IV chemotherapy treatment in April. As you may recall, she has not been able to start her 3rd cycle of IV chemotherapy due to this. What we learned is that although her body could just be taking longer than normal to heal from the chemotherapy, there was a red flag in her blood work from yesterday that could indicate otherwise. Yes, all of this could be a result of the leukemia.

So what does this mean? Well, it means that Morgan has been scheduled for a bone marrow biopsy next week. Our hope is that it will give us a clear picture of what is going on inside of that little body of hers so that we can come up with a plan moving forward. For it is the unknown that makes things difficult.

On that note, please pray that whatever is taking place in Morgan’s body will be revealed to us and that the Lords will be done through it all. For we know and believe by faith that our purpose is greater than the human eye can see and that he has a plan in place for it all!

Warmest regards,

Salina Watson

A year later… 6/27/19

A year ago today, around this time I was sitting in our living room watching the show Big Brother. I had been having a constant headache for days that nearly became unbearable. I was really jaundice (yellow skin), light headed and had suddenly spiked a fever. I generally don’t run fevers, so I knew something wasn’t right. With an appointment with my primary care doctor scheduled for the next day, I was planning on waiting until then to be examined, but when my temperature began to rise, I told my mom I couldn’t wait. I had to go the ER.

In the days leading up to that night, I never once thought cancer was even a possibility until I was saying my goodbyes to my mom and siblings before heading to the hospital. I began to get scared and anxious. When dad & I arrived at the ER we checked in and went to the room. Tons of questions were asked about what had been going on and labs were drawn. The time between getting labs drawn and getting the results seemed to go by so fast. My hemoglobin was 5.5, and the rest of my labs were all out of wak. IT WAS BACK! THE CANCER WAS BACK! I remember not crying that night because I knew I was going to be okay. God just wasn’t finished with me yet. 🧡 A year later and He still isn’t! This past year has been way different than my last fight. I have learned that I have a voice in my medical decisions and am NOT afraid to tell my medical team what I want. I’m living life on my terms despite this dreaded disease and NO one is going to get in the way of that! 😊

-Mo🧡

Picture: Our family friend, Ms Evy the morning after. You can really see how jaundice I was.

Thursday, 5/16/19

 

Good Thursday morning, everyone. I just wanted to take a few moments to send out an update on Morgan. As you may already know, she was admitted into the hospital on Tuesday afternoon following an appointment in the clinic. She went in that morning to have labs drawn with the plan to have a bone marrow biopsy and spinal tap the following day; however, her blood work revealed  low counts. To be specific, her platelet count was 6 thousand ( normal 150,000- 350,000ish ),  hemoglobin 7.8 (normal 12-16), and her immune system very low.

With that said, the plan was to transfuse her with platelets that day , cancel the procedures for the following day and have a blood transfusion, instead. In the middle of this she developed a fever. Obviously with her immune system being so low, a fever can complicate things very quickly, if you are not careful. After monitoring her for a bit, it was determined that she would need to be transferred to Dallas and admitted, as her temperature continued to creep up, despite the Tylenol she had taken to prepare for the platelet transfusion.

 

She is doing well, all things considered; although, she is pretty bruised all over her body from the low platelet count. Her time in the hospital has been pretty busy . Yesterday she received 2 units of blood, 2 units of platelets, IV antibiotics every 4 hours, IVIG and another IV medication to help her bone marrow recover from the last phase of IV chemo, which finished up 3 weeks ago. Our hope is that she can have the bone marrow biopsy/ spinal tap done today so that we can find out in the next week or so whether or not this current regimen is working. We did find out just a bit ago that she will be receiving another unit of blood this morning  as her counts have not come up enough since she received the 2 units yesterday. I’m sure the hour long nose bleed was not helpful in the matter.

Let’s pray that we can proceed safely this morning as Morgan was scheduled to have these procedures last week. She is already about 2 months behind schedule on this 6 month treatment plan. To put things into perspective, she should be starting her 5th month of IV chemo next week; however, she will be starting her 3rd month once she is cleared to do so.

Well, I think that will do it for now. Once of us will update you guys via this blog &/or on Facebook as soon as we know more. I hope you guys have a great Thursday. Take care!

Warmest regards,

Salina Watson

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday, 4/25/19

Hey, Team Morgan!!

This past week has been a great one for me. 😊

Yesterday I went to clinic, received my 3rd week of chemo for month 2. Even though my platelets still continue to be low, my oncologist gave me the okay to restart my oral chemo after a month of holding it. Yay! I also found out that my hemoglobin was 8.5 (they typically infuse at or below 8) ,but since I’m slowly starting to get headaches I decided to go ahead and get transfused a week early, so I won’t be miserable over the weekend. I was supposed to get transfused today, but it was postponed until tomorrow.

That’s it for this week. I hope y’all have a great rest of your week. I look forward to talking to y’all next week!

-Mo🧡

Wednesday, 4/17/19

Good Wednesday evening, everyone! It’s Morgan! And this is my first official post on my blog !! 🎉I just wanted to give y’all a short update from the past week. I’ll be quite honest with you guys, it’s been ROUGH! Since last Thursday I had a constant headache (no medicine would work) and was in bed the majority of the time due to it & being extremely fatigued. As you guys know… I was FINALLY able to restart IV chemo last week. I was pretty happy about it being that I was more than a month behind schedule.

On top of being exhausted from chemo last week, I found out yesterday that my Hemoglobin was 6.2😳 which was the main cause of my headaches. That said, today while in clinic, i received my 2nd dose of IV chemo for my 2nd cycle along with a blood transfusion. Hopefully, tomorrow I’ll be back to myself. Let’s pray for that! 😊Well, I think that’s it for today. I hope everyone has a great rest of your week and an even better weekend.

-Mo🧡

Thursday, 4/11/2019

Hi, guys! Good Thursday morning to each of you. I just wanted to take a few minutes to send out an update on Morgan before getting this day underway. To begin,  she finally started her 2nd month of IV chemotherapy yesterday for this round. Although she is 6 weeks behind schedule and should have started month 3 last Wednesday, we are happy that she was able to get the ball rolling again. Her blood counts have still not recovered completely from the first month of treatment, but her immune system was high enough to reintroduce IV chemotherapy, thankfully.

That said, she has had a pretty good couple of weeks. Although some days were better than others, she has been able to spend sometime away from home for a few hours at a time. She went to the Texas Rangers Opening Day game, took prom pictures of her brother, Montana at Adriatica followed by dinner,  enjoyed the fair in Frisco with her sister, Mariah and finally had lunch with her friend, Allie. All of these things have been helpful in keeping her spirits high. Let’s pray it continues during this phase of treatment.

Well, I think that will do it for today. I hope that you guys have a wonderful Thursday! Take care!

 

Warmest regard,

Salina Watson

Thursday, 3/28/19

Hi, guys! Happy Thursday to you all. I just wanted to send out a quick message to update you on Morgan, being that I did not have an opportunity to do so last night. So, let’s get started.

For the past several days, Morgan has not been feeling well. She had been experiencing nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and sharp lower abdominal pain that radiated down her legs into her feet. The pain seemed to come in cycles every 2 hours and lasted about 15-20minutes at a time. It would then gradually dissipate. We initially thought that all of these symptoms were a result of the new medication that she started last Thursday:  however, that was not the case.

While the nausea and vomiting is likely due to the new medication, the pain that she was experiencing is due to her being dehydrated , as is the fatigue. On top of that, she was in need of blood. That said, she received 2 units of blood and a bag of fluids in the clinic yesterday. Although she is not feeling 100%, she is definitely feeling better than she was, thankfully.

As far as IV chemotherapy, it was delayed for at least another week due to her platelets still being low. To be honest, this made us a little nervous being that she was supposed to start her 2nd month of weekly chemotherapy on 2/27/19. However, her oncologist assured us that being delayed is normal with this particular medication. Let’s pray that she is able to move forward with treatment next week.

Well, I think that will do it for today. I hope you guys have a awesome day. Make it a great one!

Warmest regard,

Salina Watson

 

Thursday, 3/21/2019

Hi, everyone! I just wanted to send out a real quick update to let you all know that  Morgan was seen in the clinic yesterday,  and that her IV chemo was postposed for another week. This makes her 4 weeks behind schedule on this 6 month phase due to her blood counts. That said, an adjustment was made to her daily oral chemotherapy with the hope that it will help in the recovery process. Let’s pray that it does. Besides that, she seems to be doing well. Although she had to start a new medication today due to a minor issue that she has been dealing with the past several weeks, she has been feeling good with no real complaints. I’m praying this continues!

Well, I think that will do it for tonight. I wish you all a good night’s rest. Morgan & I will see you guys on Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/Team-Morgan-1965696367072741 tomorrow, and here next week! Blessings to each and everyone of you!

Warmest regards,

Salina Watson