Brooke's Transplant Journey Started 31st March
Brooke's Transplant Journey began on Monday 31st March! this was the day where brooke started her journey and had to say an emotional farewell to her close family as isolation started from day 1 of being admitted into St. Mary Hospital Paddington. Pre transplant brooke was given intense chemotheraphy for 7 days straight, as first we didnt notice much change in brooke but after 4 days brooke started to get sick, she became very tired and had side effects earlier than any other DBA patient at St Marys having a transplant. After 4 Days brookes hickman line started leaking and split she was taken for emergency surgery to have it taken out and a new one fitted.
After the hickman line was changed the chemo really started to kick in she started having the shakes and vomiting. she was hooked up to heart monitors and suffered from severe cramps she was given oral morphine and fitted with her own personal morphine pump after a week in there brooke had her scariest night where she vomited up 500ml of blood was lifeless and shaking. FINALLY WE WERE AT TRANSPLANT DAY 8th April. Brooke got Amazing support from family and friends as shown on her selfie for brooke page to keep her going. she had to have a NG tube fitted to take meds as orally she couldnt stomach them had ct scan as possible infection behind her ear.she dislikes the tube and accuses it of choking her ontop of this her ear was getting worse.
Brooke seemed to if only for a short time she was put onto oxygen and the infection behind her ear was confirmed and started treatment, by mid april brooke was having severe stomach cramps and extremely high blood pressure and suffering with nosebleeds her hair has started to fall out, she has weekly dressing changes to her hickman line which further more distress her. she switched back from iv meds to oral resulting in lots of vomiting. By the End of April we were hoping for rooke to be released early however her liver and kidney levels were extremly high and they discovered gallstones, little did we know this was the start of a very tough month for brooke. brookes blood pressure was 142/82 going up as high as 170 over the next few weeks her second ng tube had to be refittd as she has stopped eating by may 5th brooke is having severe chest pains the infection is back behind her ear shes going from hypotension to hypertension only way to control her BP is to have her on 5 Beta Blockers shes also developed a severe rash. by mid may we were told brooke would be having a endoscope and colonosopy shes becoming weaker after deciding it wasnt normal for brooke to sleep 23 hours out of 24 a day her severe rash and intense itching she is given a skin biopsy a lumber puncture bone marrow asperate and scans, we couldnt imagine what we would be told.
Brookes Latest Diagnosis
We was informed that Brooke had Graft Verses Host Disease in her gut her skin and colon ontop of this it was also discovered that brooke had developed Human Herpes Virus 6 and finally we were told brooke had encephalitis in her brain and blood and an infection in her bone marrow itself.