Team Maggie Update Day+21

Wow! Three weeks since Maggie received Lucas' bone marrow! How time flies, but I know at the same time goes slowly.

Here's how Lauren described yesterday

Hi everyone. Maggie had a good day today. She is currently sleeping on my lap..she had big plans to stay up all night and watch movies with me..haha. So cute.

Today we tried switching her anti-fungal to oral as the iv form is one of the meds that can cause the cardiac abnormalities. She swallowed it and immediately threw it all back up. So we had to give her the iv form again and will try the oral one again tomorrow. They are giving her a couple more days to see if she can take her meds better and also see if she will start eating a little. If she can't do either thing they are contemplating putting a tube down her nose that would go into her gut. She would be able to get her oral meds through it and also she would get feeds through that instead of TPN. The advantages are that option is easier on her liver and it would stimulate her gut possibly making her feel hungry more than TPN would. The downfall is the obvious..it's a tube in her nose. So we'll see. The hope is she can start to take her oral meds better and start eating a little so we can work towards getting her off TPN altogether. Right now she just has zero interest in food which they said is all very normal.

She is still having higher blood pressures..it seems this will be an issue until we can start to lower her cyclosporin which will be awhile.

The positives today were an ANC of 8,000! Wow! Also her hemoglobin seems to be holding steady in the 8's and although her platelets are still falling they are not dropping as fast and she can go a couple days without a transfusion of those.

She also got off the morphine pca today! She is now getting it every 3 hours and they will continue to wean her. A couple pumps on her iv pole were removed today and that was awesome to see!!

We are getting closer every day to a healthy little girl and I couldn't be anymore thankful!!

Just a couple of reminders.

Mark your calendar for Monday, August 19th, because that night will be a Team Maggie Night at Miguel’s Mexican Restaurant on the Hogan Road in Bangor. They will be donating 10 percent of all the dinner sales to Team Maggie, and there will be a 50/50 raffle. If you would like to help with the planning, please call Chris Popper at 941-1994 or email me at chris.popper@townsquaremedia.com

Maggie turns 5 on August 19th. She will be in the hospital still on her birthday. If you’d like to send a card or a gift, her address is

BMT Unit Floating 6
Attention: Maggie Rudnicki
750 Washington Street
Boston, MA 02111

I asked Maggie’s mom what she likes and this is Lauren’s reply

“She loves the Boston bruins, lip gloss and scary things (ghost stories, vampires, goosebumps books etc) those are a few favorites but honestly just well wishes are all she needs!”

Please keep praying. Prayers do work! They’ve made those little white cells grow, and those white blood cells are what’s making Maggie feel so good. The change in in the past Week has been nothing short of miraculous!  Pray for a peaceful night and week ahead.   Pray for a sense of calmness for Maggie, Lauren and the entire Rudnicki family. Pray that those white blood cells continue to grow, and grow quickly!  Pray for healing, pray for strength! Pray that they can be discharged to the Neely House soon! Pray that Maggie can swallow the medicine and not need a nasal tube.

You can make a donation to help defray the medical and travel costs associated with Maggie’s care. Maggie has been down in Boston for over 4 weeks. If you want to make a donation, click HERE for the details

We now have over 100 photos of Team Maggie support up on the site. If you want to send your picture, you can upload it HERE or just click HERE to view them all.Please note, if you do upload them, they don’t appear instantly, as we are moderating all pictures, just to insure appropriate content. You can also send me your pictures directly at chris.popper@townsquaremedia.com.

More later. Keep the faith Team Maggie!