Mike and Gina,
their journey...
Gina
and Michael met in the fall of 1995 at Jefferson State Community College.
At this time they both were on scholarships singing for Jeff State College.
They dated for 5 years and decided
that they wanted to wait to get married until they both had
finished
college and at least one of them had a good position with a company here
in
Birmingham. Both, Mike and Gina,
went to UAB where Mike received a Bachelors Degree in
Management Information
Systems and Gina, never to be outdone, received two degrees in
Elementary Education and Learning
Disabilities. She received a 4.0 GPA in both degrees and
graduated Magna Cum Laude.
After graduation
Mike got a job with a company in town and they set a date to be married
for March 25th 2000. Everything
was wonderful! They had a wonderful wedding and a great
honeymoon. When
they returned from their honeymoon, Gina was offered a position as a
8th grade special education teacher
and Michael was offered a position with SRM Corporation
here in Birmingham. They both accepted and
they were then ready to get an
apartment and settle into the
rest of their lives together.
Around the Mid part of May, Gina start noticing unexplained bruises on her body.
She is not a very
athletic person so this was causing them some concern. She also started
feeling very fatigued ALL of the time. Gina was now substitute teaching
at a local
Elementary school and she would come
home from work and go straight to sleep for a couple of
hours until Mike returned
home and then she would barely eat supper and go back to sleep.
Gina also started
having terrible indigestion and what felt like heartburn. She also had
a
slight fever. They went to her doctor
and he said that he felt that it was just stress. They had just
gotten married, she just accepted
her first real job, and they also were about to move across town
(away from her mom and grandmother). The
doctor gave her some antibiotics and told them to call
him in a week if she still felt bad. After
a week had past, Gina was not getting better, only worse.
She was now hurting to the touch in her mid section and breastbone.
Gina’s bruising was getting worse and she was always in pain.
On Saturday, May 26th, they called the doctor to tell him that Gina
was worse.
The doctor told them to stop the antibiotics
he had placed Gina on and to come see him on Monday.
Gina noticed that night that
a blood blister, the size of a small freckle, was on the inside of her
mouth. The next morning, the blister was
the size of a dime and was raised a little. Mike tried to call
her dentist but he was unreachable. Gina
was still trying to explain the symptoms away as nothing
serious. Mike gave her a few hours
to rest and relax and then told her to pick a hospital because
was going to the emergency room.
In the emergency room the doctor
noticed small red freckles on Gina's legs and arms. He also
thought the bruises to be suspicious.
The doctor did some blood work and noticed the following:
A Normal persons platelet count (platelets,
help the blood to clot) is supposed to be
between 100-140 thousand, Gina’s was 30.
A Normal persons white cell count (white
cells help fight infection) is supposed to be between 4-10
thousand, Gina’s was 220,000!!! The white
cells were all immature cells that were abnormal and
they were blocking the red cells from
bringing oxygen into the body (her fatigue). They were also
keeping the platelets from helping
the body to clot (all the bruises). These cells had also filled her
bones (which is why she hurt to the
touch) and filled her liver and spleen and
caused them to become severely enlarged.
A CLASSIC SIGN OF LEUKEMIA - Acute Myelogenous Leukemia.
They immediately admitted Gina into St.Vincent’s
Oncology Floor. The next morning they put in a
center line catheter in Gina’s neck and
started getting her ready to start Chemotherapy. To shorten
this section up, Gina was receiving treatment
from May 28th Until September when she relapsed.
The doctor at St.Vincent’s said that he was
at the end of what he could do for her and asked them to
go to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston Texas for other options.
They arrived In Houston on September
20th where they admitted her quickly and started another
experimental chemotherapy (Mylotarg) along
with 3 other chemotherapy's. She was the 146th person EVER to receive this
treatment. Gina did go into remission and they found an unrelated donor
to donate marrow for a bone marrow transplant.
Not only
did Gina make it, she was the fastest EVER to recover from the transplant.
The doctors and nurses were amazed with
her progress. She was 100% donor in her marrow and
everything was working great.
They had to stay in Houston for 100 days after the transplant.
Gina and Miss Emma!
At the end of March, Gina had
recovered enough to be allowed to go home to Alabama and get
follow up blood work from St.Vincent’s Hospital.
They purchased a home in Fultondale and Mike
had just been offered 3 different jobs in
Birmingham, which would cover them again with a good
insurance plan.
They closed on their new home!
Friday April 20th, Gina’s doctor called and said
that her blood work from that day
showed that the leukemia was back again.
They were both devastated. Her doctor in Birmingham
had already been in contact with her doctor
in Texas and they were to go back out there
immediately. They arrived in Houston
on Monday the 23rd and they admitted Gina Wednesday
and started another experimental Chemotherapy on
Thursday night.
She had just finished that treatment and her
counts have been dropping rapidly. They wanted this to
get Gina back into remission and if it keeps
her in remission they were asking the donor to give his
infection fighting cells called lymphocytes.
They would give Gina another round of Chemo and then
give her a lymphocyte infusion. The Doctors
hoped this would spark her new marrow and make it
fight off any leukemia from returning.
This did not work, but as they have said many times, "We
have faith. Our God is greater."
There are only Phase 1 treatments left to try which have a 0-4%
chance of working. All the while, each round
of chemo is having a terrible effect on Gina’s body and organs. Each
round can get you closer to heart, liver and kidney failure.
Mike and Gina were able to get back
into the same apartment they had the first time they went to
Houston and will stay there until the doctors tell them it is safe to return
home.
Mike and Gina's Story Continues.....