Tanya Marie's love and care...and medical bills

UPDATE! March 31

Hello Cheer squad! Hope everyone had a lovely weekend. Wanted to give you some TMarie news...she's improving slow and steady. Her mind and body are healing, she's eating on her own now, and starting the long road to becoming physically back to it. She wants everyone to know she loves you all, and misses you and is looking forward to being able to reach out to you when she's able. She very much appreciates all the love and support you're sending her and Tom's way!

UPDATE! March 10

Good news! Tanya has been removed from her ventilator and is awake and yapping as much as ever. They have moved her out of the ICU!! She should be past the worst of the side effects of the CAR T-Cell therapy and now faces a long recovery period. But things are moving in the right direction. Keep the love headed her way!!

UPDATE! February 29

From Tom with love: Today Tanya received her T-cell infusion, 2 million tiny white blood cells that will multiply to between 2 and 20 billion cells over the course of the next week or so, designed to attack her specific form of cancer. So far everything is going as anticipated. We expect she will remain in the hospital for at least the next week or so as they monitor her for potential side effects and deal with them as they arise. The hospital staff made her a "Happy Cells Day" card and they all signed it and sang her happy birthday because this treatment is a second chance at life. It was very sweet.

UPDATE! February 16

Tanya has been in the hospital in Santa Rosa all this week working on finding the best approach to managing her pain. Throughout this journey, pain management has been her biggest bugaboo. She is working with experts in the field and we are confident they will make her as comfortable as possible. The pain has very much limited Tanya's mobility quite a bit. So she has a new wheelchair for getting from A to B (do we need racing stripes on it?!)!

Next week Tom and Tanya will transfer down to Stanford Medical Center to begin the long process of CAR T-Cell therapy. They got a special hospital bed for their hotel room. She finds those things to be very comfy and sleeps well in them. That will come in handy before and after the hospital stay.

Tanya begins preliminary treatment on the 22nd and will likely check in to the hospital on the 26th. The CAR T-Cell infusion is scheduled for the 27th and she will remain in the hospital for a minimum of one week afterward for monitoring and managing the side effects of the treatment. Then they will remain in their hotel room for at least another 30 days to stay close to Stanford for frequent follow-ups and monitoring. And then hopefully will return in April cancer-free!

Much love to you all for your very generous support of our friends...it has helped tremendously to allow them to focus on Tanya's care. xoxo

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Our friends Tom and Tanya are heading into the next chapter of Tanya’s treatment. As you probably know, Tanya was diagnosed with an aggressive variety of non-Hodgkins Lymphoma last year. Most of the time since then was spent undergoing chemotherapy. In the past month, it was determined that Tanya’s cancer was no longer responding to chemotherapy as well as we had hoped. She was referred to Stanford Medical Center for CAR T-Cell Immunotherapy to better attack her aggressive variety of the disease. The bridge chemotherapy that was planned in the interim has also not been effective. So Tanya will receive radiation therapy to help keep the cancer at bay while she awaits the start of her immunotherapy. So thankful that we have such skilled medical care in the Bay Area!

Tanya’s T-Cells were collected this past week, and now comes a 2 to 3 week waiting period while they are reprogrammed and reproduced prior to being reintroduced via infusion. Radiation therapy will begin this week in Sonoma County. They are tentatively scheduled to head back down to Stanford about a week before infusion (on Feb 21) to undergo further testing and meet with her oncologist. During that week she will also receive a few days of chemotherapy to prepare for the CAR T-Cell infusion and 2 days later will be admitted to the hospital for 1-2 weeks. After discharge, they are required to remain local to the Stanford area for a minimum of 30 days for frequent follow-on appointments and aggressive treatment of emergent side effects as they occur.

As Tanya’s primary caregiver, Tom will stay with Tanya while she is in the hospital. Stanford is accommodating in this way. However the two of them will need accommodations both before and after her hospitalization for a total of at least somewhere between 45 and 60 days. It could be longer if medically necessary. Their son, Matt, and his wife, Holly, will hold down the fort at home while they are gone.

Needless to say, staying out of town for such a long period, and all the related expenses, is coming at a tremendous cost, especially in the area around Stanford Medical Center. We are putting this fundraiser together to hopefully make it a bit easier on the family financially so that they can focus on healing. Any amount you can contribute would be immensely appreciated!