Karina Jean

Dear family & friends,

Yesterday, April 26th, 2010, our sweet Karina went home to be with Jesus. Our brave girl fought hard until the end, and now she truly is healed. She will be greatly missed; the best daughter, sister, and friend. A celebration of her life will be held Saturday, May 8th, at Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church (Gig Harbor) at 3pm. Everyone is welcome!

Thank you so much for all your prayers, love, & support.

Love,
the Robertson Family

Hospital Continued, April 9

Hello All,

It's Annika here, writing for Karina.

It's been a while since the last update, so here's what's happened since March 24th:

Saturday after Karina was admitted at TG, she had another chest X-Ray taken which revealed bacterial pneumonia in her left lung. She is on several antibiotics to stop it from progressing, and now we are waiting for her white blood cells and other counts to bounce back so she can fight this on her own. As of this morning, her white count is .03...she has a long way to go. She's been on and off of oxygen for the last two weeks, right now she is on. She really wants to come home, so please pray for a speedy recovery! In the last two days her low potassium level has become an issue. We switched to a different room on a new floor so her heart can be monitored while she receives large doses of potassium. It was scary at first, but so far it's going smoothly. She is still having fevers, and needs to start eating more. Her appetite is definitely coming back (tonight we're having terriyaki, yum!), just pray she can keep it down! She is feeling a little better now than when we first got here.

So things to pray for are...

• blood counts to go up
• fevers to stop
• potassium levels to go up
• appetite
• go home, pronto!

Thank you all so much for you prayers, love, & support.

Love,

Annika & Karina♥

Feverish

Hey There everyone.

Well I got a fever last night around 102-103F and the standard is to go straight to the hospital which we did. So here I am in TG again. They are waiting for blood culture results to come back to see if I have some sort of infection. If there's no infection then this is just my bodies way to reacting to being neutropenic(low on white cells and everything else). So I'm just resting here get antibiotics and fluids and hopefully can get out when I've been feverless for 24hrs.

Things to Pray For:

• Fevers go away
• Smooth recovery
• No infections
• Counts go up

Well I'm gonna hang out with Karl and watch American Idol.

Thanks for your prayers and love.

Love,

Karina

Phase 1 Complete

Well I am officially done with chemo as of yesterday! The tumor is gone and there is no cancer in my bone marrow or blood! Thank you God!

We came home yesterday afternoon. It was a little rough last night just getting neasua under control, but this morning I'm feeling better. I hope and pray we can continue to keep the neasua under control and that I don't get any fevers. Fevers land me back in the hospital and I never want to go back. So the next few weeks will be spent recovering and waiting for my counts to come up. The next step will to be to do the lymphocytic infusion.

It is SO good to be home, I was counting the days!

Things to Pray For:

• neasua kept under control
• counts come up
• patience-waiting for the counts to come up
• no fevers-this is a big one
• continue to gain weight and strength

Thank you for your prayers and support!

Love,

Karina

Round 2

Greetings from TG!

I am currently sitting in my room snacking on chicken McNuggets, the lunch of Olympians ha. Chemo doesn't start until around 2pm so I'm eating a lot before I feel sick. I'm not really excited to be here but I am hopeful that Thursday will come quickly and then I can finally be done with this place FOREVER. (That's if I don't get any fevers.) The being done FOREVER part I am really happy about!

This morning I got a bone marrow aspiration to see how it's doing. They have to run tests on the sample they took, but Dr. Thomas looked at it and didn't see any cancer and the bone marrow is working hard to make platelets, red cells, white cells etc. So that's good news! I am about to get a I.V. inserted for a CT scan later today so I better go.

Keep praying for smooth chemo and no fevers and good recovery!

I'll keep you all posted, thanks for the prayers!

Love,

Karina

Postponed Again

Well hello again...bet you didn't think you'd hear from me so soon haha.

So today we went to the doctor and my bloodwork showed that my white blood count has gone up a lot, which is great! My platelets are also coming up, but I still needed a little boost. So I had a platelet transfusion. Then after that I had a blood transfusion too because my red blood was a little on the low side. It's a little low because my bone marrow is working so hard to produce other cells it can't do everything at once. Because of all these factors Chemo is now rescheduled for Monday the 8th. So another week to hang out!

That's all for now, the prayer requests remain the same as below.

Thanks for your prayers and support.

Love,

Karina

Lately

Well I've gotten behind on my updates, so sorry...

Anyway...I saw the doctor on Thursday and had to get more platelets from my dad. The good news is that my white count is up enough that I can finally enter civilization again! Although very carefully. Because my platelets are still low and I'm still weak chemo has been postponed again until Thursday March 4. I secretly glad because that means more time at home hehe.

Otherwise I'm still trying to eat more, which is a struggle ugh. But I take it one day and one meal at a time. I'm feeling pretty good except for a tight back from stress. All in all though, I'd say I'm doing well.

With my newfound freedom this weekend I plan to go see a movie with Karl(a real date yay!:) ). I also got to get a massage for my pesky back at Healthy Reflections in Uptown(if you ever need one, go there!). I'm happy to get out a little, it's great!

Things to Pray For:

• Counts continue to go up, especially the platelets.
• Appetite to increase
• The hurting back
• Chemo to go well next week
• Good recovery after chemo

Well thanks for checking in, sorry my posts are getting behind, I still getting the hang of blogging:)

Thanks as always for your continued love, support, and prayers!

Love,

Karina

Update

Greetings All,

Well it's been a week since my last post, I figured I should put out a little update.

So the wig came Friday, yay! I like the way it looks and when it's on you can't even tell it's a wig, success! It was so nice to have my hair back, I missed it.

I went to the doctor today and my blood counts are coming up, which is fantastic:). Even my platelets finally are coming around. I already had two transfusions over the weekend for them and it was great to hear I didn't need any today! The doctor also decided that we're going to postpone my next chemo a week to give my counts more time to recover and give me more time to gain strength and weight. So I'm going back in March 1st for my last chemo.

Things to Pray For:

• Gain weight and strength-This is a really big one right now, I've lost over 10 lbs. and I'm pretty weak. I need to get stronger to go through more chemo.
• Counts continue to going up.
• A good next round of chemo.

All in all I'm doing pretty well. Eating is getting better and I'm working on eating more. It's great to home and with my family and not in the hospital. I haven't had one fever which I so thank God for. A fever would have landed me right back in TG, ugh. The Olympics have been keeping me entertained and I'm looking forward to catching Project Runway tonight.

Thank you again for your continued prayers and support, I'll keep you updated on what's going on!

Love,

Karina

Birthdays and Balding

Hello.

Today is Annika's birthday, Happy Birthday! Without this day I would be in a whole lot of trouble. So thank you Annika for being born and saving my life before and now again. I so owe you, if you need a kidney or blood or whatever I'm there. I love my sister so much, she is my very best friend. One mind, one marrow...and lymphocyte!

In other news...my head got shaved yesterday. It's really weird because I look fourteen again, very surreal to look in the mirror. But I'm excited because the wig they are making from my hair comes tomorrow, I can't wait to try it on!

We also heard some more from the Fred Hutch about the Donor Lymphocyte Infusion(I had the name wrong before, oops.) It sounds way less intense than a transplant would be i.e. no chemo or isolation(hallelujah!). The process takes about a week and I'd soon be able to return to a normal life and go back to SPU in the fall!...falcons how I miss you, especially my birdies on 2E, love you ladies!

Here are a few things you can be praying for:

• Blood counts to go up-as of today they are creeping up slowly, but my platelets are having a hard time-I had a platelet transfusion today and another scheduled for Saturday with my dad's platelets.
• Appetite-nothing ever sounds good:/ and I need to gain some weight back before going into chemo again.
• That dang tumor keeps shrinking.

That's all I've got for now, but I'll keep you posted!

Love,

Karina

• Hello!

First of all thank you all for coming Thursday night to the prayer service, it is so appreciated.

I'm doing pretty well. Yesterday I went to the clinic and we got some great news from good old Doctor Thomas. There is a possibility that I won't have to have another stem cell transplant! There is another type of transplant called a Lymphocytic Transplant that I could be doing instead. Annika would donate her lymphocytes to induce Graft vs. Host Disease in me, which would fight off cancer. woo! This would not be as intense as a stem cell transplant and I could get back to normal life sooner. There is a 35-40% chance of it working, which are really good odds. (remember none of this is for sure, for sure yet, pray that the doctors have wisdom on choosing the right course, which i really hope is the lymphocytic transplant).

Let's see, what else am I up to...I'm getting my hair cut off on Wednesday to make a new wig. Which is exciting, I've been growing my hair out for three years and I'm not letting it go to waste! I'm mostly just taking it easy at home, trying to eat, and watching movies:)

Things You Can Be Praying For:

• Blood Counts would come up
• Appetite-this is a big thing for me right now, my appetite is bad and I need to eat to stay strong! And also it hurts to swallow so that doesn't help either. grr.
• Wisdom for doctors

Thank you all so much for your prayers, love, and support. I'll keep you updated on what happens next!

Love,

Karina

A Good Day

Well this morning I visited the clinic for a check up. I received a platelet transfusion because well I barely had any. And I'll probably need a blood transfusion on Friday when I go back again, but that's to be expected right now after chemo. And GREAT news! That dang tumor has shrunk! I don't know exactly by how much, but smaller is good.

Anyway I'm just trying to eat(which has been hard because I'm still a little nauseated). I have found that right now I enjoy macaroni and cheese with Fruit Punch Gatorade. mmmmm...a tasty combination.

Many of you have been asking about getting tested and here's how you do it: Go to the Puget Sound Regional Blood Bank www.psbc.org. You can get into the national registry and while you may not be matched with me, you could still be someone else's donor and save another life.

Another note is that a prayer service is being held for me Thursday February 4th at 7pm. Located at the Best Western, 6575 Kimball Drive, WA. All your love and prayers are so appreciated.

Wow...this has gotten long...but I'll wrap things up for today...I'm doing alright, I know God is with me and I can do anything through Him, that's what gets me through. Phil. 4:13

Well 19 kids and counting is on, and then lost, so as you can I've got a busy evening haha.

Take Care everyone,

Love,

Karina

Things to Pray For

1. No fevers

2. Tumor shrinks complete

3. And they find the new perfect donor(anyone want to get tested?)for my next transplant

4. Nausea

5. That we all can have strength to face this

Round 1 Over.

Well what can I say about this week...I spent a good part of it sedated or throwing up. I like sedated better. But, I also had some wonderful visitors and that always makes the day go faster. Thank you dear friends coming around. So far treatment is going well my blast count(cancer cells) went way down (i cant remember number i'll ask my dad later). But so far so good, Thank you God!

I'm supposed to be between treatment for a little while which great! unfortunately my blood counts will be down for most of it so I won't go anymore, just be a homebody. But you still may visit! Just dont bring little germies with you(A.K.A. don't be sick).

I'm going to check up on Tuesday morning to see how things are going (pray pray pray!) And between now and then I will watch movies and lay around, which really sounds lovely.

Anyway Take Care all! Keep praying!

Love,

Karina

Phil. 4:13

p.s.

a little shout out to the nest...i miss you birdiesssss, come visit!(meow)

Day 1

Well moments ago I started chemo. I don't really feel different yet...other than the anti-nausea drug affects(they make me a little woozy). But so far, so good!

Earlier today they did the bone marrow aspiration which i'm a little sore from still(0uch!). And they put in my hickman line(a permanent I.V.) to make it easier to give me chemo and medicine intravenously.

Overall, it was sort of a strange day. I felt like I'd gone back in time 4 years. But there were changes, I'm an adult now! I was the one to sign my consent forms and I don't stay with kids anymore. So I guess I'm officially a grown-up.

I'm pretty tired after today, but hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to post something a little more detailed.

Love,

Karina

Here We Go...

Well hello all,

I've decided that keeping a blog would be a simple way to keep everyone updated on what's going on.

So without further ado...tomorrow I start chemo at Tacoma General and do another test(bone marrow aspiration), I should be in for about 5 days. Feel free to visit, just call or text first:)

I'll update you soon!

Thanks for your prayers and support.

Much Love,

Karina

p.s.

Feel free to ask any questions, I don't mind:)