Good Morning Angels (Vijilia)

A Beautiful 20-year old girl needs our help to get a life saving bone marrow transplant

 

 

 

REQUEST FROM: Howard Godfrey 

 

REQUEST FOR: Vijilia Esquino 

 

ANGEL: Good Morning Angels Golf Day Fund

 

SPONSORING: The Good Morning Angels Fund will donate R 30 000,00 towards the process of getting the bone marrow from Brazil to Vijilia

 

 

 

 

BACKGROUND:

 

She is 20 and beautiful and should be at the prime of her life. Vijilia Esquino is in stead extremely ill and fighting for her life. She was diagnosed with an acute form of Leukemia a few years ago and she's been fighting ever since. Her family has gone above and beyond to help her.

 

After several rounds of treatment, they thought the battle was over - until Christmas Eve last year. The cancer was back and this time, its in her spinal fluid.Vijilia has been in hospital since then: unable to walk or speak and she needs a bone marrow transplant within the next 2-3 months.

 

The race to find a donor has been wide and expensive, but it paid off: a match was found in Brazil! However, this is not the end of the battle. The bone marrow needs to get to Vijilia in South Africa and this process is not covered by medical aid.

 

She also needs special pre-transplant medical procedures, which will cost thousands. After many fund-raisers, the Esquino family need R50 000,00 to secure the bone marrow and another R85 000,00 for the pre-op treatment. This is why we are asking your help.

 

If you can help, please let us know at [email protected], subject: Vijilia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ORIGINAL REQUEST:

 

 

The Nightmare

 

 

A very short story of how a young girl’s life went from Princess of Laughter to Nightmare & Disaster in a question of minutes, and the journey to pick up the pieces towards full recovery to become that bubbly, fun loving person she was before.

Vijilia had a medical history of low blood pressure and anemia, and at each consultation, we were informed that these are all growing pains & hormonal changes that teenagers experience.

 

 

I got a distressed call on the 15.5 2012 at 14h20, after her UNISA Exam: “Mom – help me, I am not feeling so well!” As she was closest to the Nelspruit Mediclinic, we were informed to take her to the ER immediately where Dr Basson examined her. What looked like a panic attack for the uneducated eye was nothing short of Vijilia’s body going into shock.

 

 

Dr Basson drew blood and we were informed the same afternoon that there is a big possibility that she might have Leukemia. The shock was so intense, that it triggered a nose bleed. Dr Hartley examined Vijilia in the hospital and treated her then for Bronchitis, as she never really got over a common cold for 3 months! He suggested a bone marrow test to confirm what type of Leukemia she has, and by Friday afternoon, we were told to pack our bags, rush of to Pretoria because Dr Vorster (Oncologist) is waiting for us to start chemo therapy immediately.

 

 

The Diagnosis

 

 

Vijilia was diagnosed with AML – Acute Myeloid Leukemia. No specific symptoms. In layman’s terms: Cancerous white blood cells overproduces vigorously, therefore suppressing red blood cells and platelets. Meaning, with the vastly reduced red blood cells, she was tiered, had low blood pressure and continuously passing out. With the white blood cells being cancerous and under developed, it did not perform its task to fight infections that explained why she could not recover from her cold. Platelets clots blood, and because her was so low, bruised very easily. Statistic has it that if AML is not detected in early stages; your life could slip away in a question of 4 weeks. This was devastating information and made us realize how serious her diagnosis was.

 

 

The Treatment

 

 

Since then, Vijilia has gone through her first chemo therapy which we hoped would bring her into remission, but unfortunately it did not. We were then informed that a stem cell transplant is inevitable and more chemo therapy will be required. She went into remission with her 2nd chemo therapy, which runs over 3 weeks each time, in Pretoria, Little Company of Mary hospital.

 

 

Thereafter, she received 2 consolidation chemo therapies to keep her in remission. Every time they breakdown the body and the blood counts drop, she becomes neutropenic, meaning she is prone to infections and gets fevers of 40 degrees, until the correct antibiotics is administered. Daily blood tests and cultures are being drawn to see the effects of the treatment which makes her feel like a pin cushion. The more chemo she receives, the longer it takes to recover.

 

 

The Sad Reality

 

Vijilia enjoyed a month at home in Nov/Dec understanding that she is in remission and we are waiting for a donor and a confirmed transplant date. This gives the impression that half the battle has been won!

 

 

Sadly, she started with lower back pain before Christmas and after the MRI, showed that the cancer has spread in the spinal fluid. Chemo therapy does not reach the spinal fluid as there is no blood vessels connected and the lumbar punch in November, confirmed that there was no cancer cells involved.

 

 

In a question of a month, her spinal fluid and bone structure was infiltrated and on the evening of the 24th December, she was admitted to hospital.

 

 

This was devastating news for the family. We were so looking forward to spending Christmas together, but had to pack in an hour’s time, collect the presents and rush to Pretoria – 3 hours drive from home.

 

 

The protein and glucose in the spinal fluid, forms a chemical reaction, which in turn causes major irritation to the nerves. Nerve pain results in muscles being affected and they either go numb, cramp or create pins needle sensations. Vijilia has been on Morphine in high doses, to keep her from severe pain daily, but she has to deal with the side effects, like hallucinations and intestinal complications. Vijilia lost the ability to walk for over a week and is still struggling to walk by herself. Her muscle tone has diminished so far that she has to go for physiotherapy and will do so until she can support her own body weight. Her swallowing ability was also affected. She continuously aspirated when she ate or tried drinking fluids and for a week she could not eat or drink anything. Eventually she went on intravenous feeding but thankfully this function was restored to such an extent that she could start eating small portions.

 

 

She is currently still in hospital undergoing 20 radiation treatments and weekly spinal chemo therapy. The chemo therapy is administered through a lumbar punch and she has to have 5 thereof. With the bone marrow being radiated, her counts drop and then the radiation cannot continue. To get the counts up, they inject nepugen which stimulate the blood cell growth in the bone marrow which in turn causes severe pain.

In between the treatment, we started the process of trying to find a donor for her stem cell transplant. This process includes the testing of the family first and unfortunately no family member was a match. This included direct family and cousins, uncles and aunts.

 

 

Vijilia’s HLA results has been sent for HLA matching, to the South African Bone Marrow Registry, the only one in South Africa, to start the search. They will select the best possible match retrieved from their database, starting with Africa. DNA is one of the criteria of the matching 10 elements for a perfect match and therefore we are looking for a needle in a haystack.

 

 

Family and friends have raised funds for the testing as each local test costs R1100.00. With the funds raised, we have tested 51 local people, over and above the family members, and the results were negative. We have depleted the R75000.00 allocated by Discovery Health towards an international search and received a sponsor of R85000.00 to continue the search, which is now depleted. Currently they have done 10 searches on the local registry, 6 Brazilians, 1 German, 1 Portuguese and 1 Australian on the International registry which left us with no funds for any further searches.

Should she not receive a donor in the next 2-3 months, Vijilia will have to go through more chemo therapy to prevent a further relapse, which breaks down the body even further due to toxic build up and possible heart problems. Therefore, we are trying very hard to find a suitable donor, locally or internationally and will value any form of contribution immensely.

 

 

The main aim of this letter is to promote the testing of as many people possible and to register on the Bone Marrow Registry. The Sunflower foundation is the local foundation; assisting in placing people on the registry should you wish to be enlisted as a donor - http://www.sunflowerfund.org.za/

 

 

The second aim is to raise funds for further International searches so that we can find a suitably matched donor for Vijilia as soon as possible. The estimated cost will be based on what we have paid before – R160 000.00.

 

 

We want to thank you all for the efforts that have been made so far towards Vijilia’s recovery. Without help from the outside, such as friends, family and people that care, this would not be an easy path to walk towards full recovery.

 

 

Regards,

Howard Godfrey and Julia Esquino