Cheyenne Jensen - A hero to everyone ❤️
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Cheyenne Jensen, her family, and loved ones are planning for her end of life care. Please read her story to understand the challenges she has gone through. These funds will be going towards the plethora of medical expenses they have ongoing, and travel expenses for Cheyenne and Luke’s wedding in Florida + family trip to Disney World.
On May 6th 2018 Chey was going to work as a Nurse. She hadn’t been feeling well for a few weeks and had been to urgent care a couple times the week prior but was told she had pneumonia and was but on antibiotics. Her co workers commented on how pale she was and how sick she looked and encouraged her to go down to the ER. She said she was fine and would think about it once her 12 hour shift was over. By 5:30 PM they had talked her into going to the ER finally. Within 30 minutes of walking into the ER she was diagnosed with Leukemia. She was admitted to the oncology unit where her battle began. The following day a bone marrow biopsy confirmed she had acute myeloid leukemia. She was started on chemotherapy and remained in the hospital for the next 5 weeks. At this time her son, Beckham, was only 10 months old.
She continued to get bone marrow biopsies and had chemotherapy. Her bone marrow was coming back clean and free of cancer but when they sent off the cytogenetics it would come back with a mutation called inversion 16. Due to this mutation she was referred to the University of Iowa for a stem cell transplant consult. After speaking with the doctors it was determined that if she didn’t get a stem cell transplant now she would most likely relapse within the next 5 years and then have to be transplanted anyways. So Cheyenne along with the support of her family and friends made the decision to do the stem cell transplant. Whitney, Cheyenne’s oldest sister, was a 100% match and was Cheyenne’s stem cell donor. Chey underwent intense chemo that wiped out her own bone marrow in order to receive Whitney’s. On February 14, 2019 she received her stem cell transplant and was away from her son who was now 1 1/2 years old.
Cheyenne had learned about graft versus host disease when she was doing transplant education. And the day after she got home from the hospital she started experiencing GVHD in her skin. Her skin was very itchy and would get a red sunburn like rash. Next it happened in her mouth. She had many mouth sores making it difficult and painful to eat and drink. Then her liver numbers began to rise and after a liver biopsy it was concluded that she had developed GVHD of the liver. June 2019 Chey and her boyfriend Luke had moved in together. Chey started to notice she was short of breath. She started wondering if she was allergic to something in the house or maybe something environmental. She started seeing an allergist and found she was allergic to typical season allergies like ragweed and pollen but nothing specific. With that being the really only explanation she started allergy shots and some allergy medication. Her lung function continued to decrease despite these changes to her meds.
In January 2020 Chey went to her stem cell transplant team and laid down on the clinic bed and said fix me, I’m miserable and I can’t breathe. They admitted her and did further testing and came to a conclusion that her shortness of breath was actually pulmonary GVHD. Chey received IV steroids and felt like a million bucks! She went the next 3 weeks living life feeling fantastic. And then she started to get short of breath again and they concluded that cheys lung GVHD was not responding to the steroids anymore. They became resistant to steroids. With no other options for treatment she started pulmonary rehab and tried to remain as active as possible. Having good days and bad days but for the most part it was tolerable.
In 2021 Chey’s lung function started decreasing again she asked her stem cell transplant team “what’s going to happen to me”? Am I just going to die from this? She brought up the possibility of a lung transplant and they placed a consult the the lung transplant team at the university of Iowa. On May 15th 2021 Chey met Dr. Pena for the first time. He talked about all the things that needed to happen to get listed and that’s the day she started her lung transplant journey. Over the next few months she checked off all the tests and check ups that had to happen for lung transplant.
On Feb 13th 2022 our prayers were answered and Chey was listen on the UNOS list. A short 3 weeks later, March 8th, Chey was called and told to go to the University of Iowa because they had a potential donor. Chey went into surgery that night at 10:30 and was in surgery for 16 hours. She had to be placed on ECMO for a couple hours but her heart pulled through and she showed up in the ICU without ECMO. The next few days were spent ventilated with no sedation. She got the the chair ventilated, she communicated with us by writing on a white board and finally when her team knew her new lungs were ready she got extubated and a much appreciated drink of water. Chey spent the next couple weeks recovering at the University of Iowa. She then had to live in a hotel for an additional few weeks to stay close to the hospital incase anything happened. On April 14th Chey got the green light to go home! Recovery was going great. Chey was getting stronger and stronger with each passing day. She was taking her dog for a walk, watching Beckham’s soccer games, going to the pool with Beckham and doing all the things she felt that she had missed out on the previous years. In July, Chey became short of breath and it was found she had a little bit of rejection. It’s pretty common with almost everyone that is transplanted and it’s treated with high dose steroids.
In August, Chey was getting really short of breath again. Her doctors brought up the word Chronic rejection to her. She had learned about this in transplant education and knew that Chronic rejection couldn’t be treated. A few tears were shed and after some more testing was done and more doctors were consulted they came to the conclusion that it was more likely and hyper immune response to inflammation. They wanted to try IVIG infusions and toci. feeling a little more hopeful Chey put the words chronic rejection to the side and focused more on the new diagnosis. Chey has been in and out of the hospital multiple times since august for days sometimes weeks at a time. During one of these admissions she had a chest CT. In the chest CT they saw something on her liver that was concerning. Upon investigating it further they found clots in 2 of her main liver veins and that her liver is very sick with cirrhosis from the GVHD of her liver. The toci and the IVIG are not working like they hoped.
Cheys lung transplant team do not feel that it is safe enough to do another transplant. They would need to transplant 2 new lungs and a new liver. They consulted Duke, Penn, and Cleveland clinic and all 3 of them have denied her case. Chey is now looking at end of life care and spending the days ahead surrounded by her loving family and friends. Taking Beckham to Disney world, and marrying the love of her life Luke.
Like stated above, these funds will be going towards medical expenses and travel expenses for Cheyenne and Luke’s wedding in Florida + family trip to Disney World. Let’s get them everything they deserve - including fast passes at Disney World for the everyone. ❤️❤️ Thank you for your donation.
On May 6th 2018 Chey was going to work as a Nurse. She hadn’t been feeling well for a few weeks and had been to urgent care a couple times the week prior but was told she had pneumonia and was but on antibiotics. Her co workers commented on how pale she was and how sick she looked and encouraged her to go down to the ER. She said she was fine and would think about it once her 12 hour shift was over. By 5:30 PM they had talked her into going to the ER finally. Within 30 minutes of walking into the ER she was diagnosed with Leukemia. She was admitted to the oncology unit where her battle began. The following day a bone marrow biopsy confirmed she had acute myeloid leukemia. She was started on chemotherapy and remained in the hospital for the next 5 weeks. At this time her son, Beckham, was only 10 months old.
She continued to get bone marrow biopsies and had chemotherapy. Her bone marrow was coming back clean and free of cancer but when they sent off the cytogenetics it would come back with a mutation called inversion 16. Due to this mutation she was referred to the University of Iowa for a stem cell transplant consult. After speaking with the doctors it was determined that if she didn’t get a stem cell transplant now she would most likely relapse within the next 5 years and then have to be transplanted anyways. So Cheyenne along with the support of her family and friends made the decision to do the stem cell transplant. Whitney, Cheyenne’s oldest sister, was a 100% match and was Cheyenne’s stem cell donor. Chey underwent intense chemo that wiped out her own bone marrow in order to receive Whitney’s. On February 14, 2019 she received her stem cell transplant and was away from her son who was now 1 1/2 years old.
Cheyenne had learned about graft versus host disease when she was doing transplant education. And the day after she got home from the hospital she started experiencing GVHD in her skin. Her skin was very itchy and would get a red sunburn like rash. Next it happened in her mouth. She had many mouth sores making it difficult and painful to eat and drink. Then her liver numbers began to rise and after a liver biopsy it was concluded that she had developed GVHD of the liver. June 2019 Chey and her boyfriend Luke had moved in together. Chey started to notice she was short of breath. She started wondering if she was allergic to something in the house or maybe something environmental. She started seeing an allergist and found she was allergic to typical season allergies like ragweed and pollen but nothing specific. With that being the really only explanation she started allergy shots and some allergy medication. Her lung function continued to decrease despite these changes to her meds.
In January 2020 Chey went to her stem cell transplant team and laid down on the clinic bed and said fix me, I’m miserable and I can’t breathe. They admitted her and did further testing and came to a conclusion that her shortness of breath was actually pulmonary GVHD. Chey received IV steroids and felt like a million bucks! She went the next 3 weeks living life feeling fantastic. And then she started to get short of breath again and they concluded that cheys lung GVHD was not responding to the steroids anymore. They became resistant to steroids. With no other options for treatment she started pulmonary rehab and tried to remain as active as possible. Having good days and bad days but for the most part it was tolerable.
In 2021 Chey’s lung function started decreasing again she asked her stem cell transplant team “what’s going to happen to me”? Am I just going to die from this? She brought up the possibility of a lung transplant and they placed a consult the the lung transplant team at the university of Iowa. On May 15th 2021 Chey met Dr. Pena for the first time. He talked about all the things that needed to happen to get listed and that’s the day she started her lung transplant journey. Over the next few months she checked off all the tests and check ups that had to happen for lung transplant.
On Feb 13th 2022 our prayers were answered and Chey was listen on the UNOS list. A short 3 weeks later, March 8th, Chey was called and told to go to the University of Iowa because they had a potential donor. Chey went into surgery that night at 10:30 and was in surgery for 16 hours. She had to be placed on ECMO for a couple hours but her heart pulled through and she showed up in the ICU without ECMO. The next few days were spent ventilated with no sedation. She got the the chair ventilated, she communicated with us by writing on a white board and finally when her team knew her new lungs were ready she got extubated and a much appreciated drink of water. Chey spent the next couple weeks recovering at the University of Iowa. She then had to live in a hotel for an additional few weeks to stay close to the hospital incase anything happened. On April 14th Chey got the green light to go home! Recovery was going great. Chey was getting stronger and stronger with each passing day. She was taking her dog for a walk, watching Beckham’s soccer games, going to the pool with Beckham and doing all the things she felt that she had missed out on the previous years. In July, Chey became short of breath and it was found she had a little bit of rejection. It’s pretty common with almost everyone that is transplanted and it’s treated with high dose steroids.
In August, Chey was getting really short of breath again. Her doctors brought up the word Chronic rejection to her. She had learned about this in transplant education and knew that Chronic rejection couldn’t be treated. A few tears were shed and after some more testing was done and more doctors were consulted they came to the conclusion that it was more likely and hyper immune response to inflammation. They wanted to try IVIG infusions and toci. feeling a little more hopeful Chey put the words chronic rejection to the side and focused more on the new diagnosis. Chey has been in and out of the hospital multiple times since august for days sometimes weeks at a time. During one of these admissions she had a chest CT. In the chest CT they saw something on her liver that was concerning. Upon investigating it further they found clots in 2 of her main liver veins and that her liver is very sick with cirrhosis from the GVHD of her liver. The toci and the IVIG are not working like they hoped.
Cheys lung transplant team do not feel that it is safe enough to do another transplant. They would need to transplant 2 new lungs and a new liver. They consulted Duke, Penn, and Cleveland clinic and all 3 of them have denied her case. Chey is now looking at end of life care and spending the days ahead surrounded by her loving family and friends. Taking Beckham to Disney world, and marrying the love of her life Luke.
Like stated above, these funds will be going towards medical expenses and travel expenses for Cheyenne and Luke’s wedding in Florida + family trip to Disney World. Let’s get them everything they deserve - including fast passes at Disney World for the everyone. ❤️❤️ Thank you for your donation.
Organizer and beneficiary
Hannah Shadravan
Organizer
Des Moines, IA
Luke Torry
Beneficiary