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Kailee's holiday gift: home
By Joline Gutierrez Krueger
Tribune Reporter
December 9, 2005 - Kailee Wells is going home for the holidays. But it doesn't mean the 8-year-old Albuquerque girl is home-free from the rare blood disease she has battled for half her young life.
Kailee has been a patient at the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin since Nov. 7 when she underwent a second marrow transplant with cells from a donor in China, an almost miraculous find after the family spent years searching the globe and had come up dry.
On Thursday, doctors said Kailee could go home, now in suburban Milwaukee where her parents moved her a year ago this month to be close to her doctors.
"After 40 days confined to a hospital room it will be nice to have the run of the house," Owen Wells, Kailee's father, said in an e-mail. "Kailee will need to go to the (hospital) clinic every other day for check-ups, but going home will be good for all of our spirits."
And the family is likely going to need its spirits lifted. They also may need another miracle.
Two weeks ago, tests on the transfused cells showed signs of rejection, Wells said. Additional medications and steroids were given to keep rejection at bay, he said.
The treatment appears to be working, raising the percentage of donor cells in Kailee's blood from 75 to 95 where it had been before the Dec. 2 decrease.
"The battle is raging between Kailee's T cells and the donor's T cells. If the donor's cells win, we have engraftment. If Kailee's cells win, we have rejection," he said. "Now, we can only hope and pray that the donor wins."
Kailee has also endured weeks of spiking fevers and severe bone pain, said her mother, Linda Wells. But the most emotional ordeal for Kailee, she said, was the loss of her lush dark hair.
"And boy is she mad about it," she said. "I am too, actually. I found myself in tears, asking just how much a little girl should have to deal with."
A new wig presented to Kailee on Wednesday may help some, she said.
"She looks great, but it itches her scalp which is clearly visible through the little hair she has left," she said.
The Wellses have said the transplant could give Kailee the normal life she has longed for.
Or it could kill her.
Kailee, adopted from an orphanage in China, was diagnosed in January 2002 with severe aplastic anemia. She survived a similar transplant this past January with cells that were not as well-matched.
The donor for the most recent transplant came from Wang Lin, a 28-year-old physician from Zhejiang province. He was identified a day before the family planned to embark on a third quest for donors in China.
Meanwhile, both Linda and Owen Wells said they will enjoy the holidays at home. And wait.
"The final outcome of this first major battle will not be known for perhaps another month," Owen Wells said. "But we will all be happier at home."
Mesothelioma Search Engine to Consolidate Medical and Legal Information
New lung cancer search engine provides information on medical and legal web sites for those researching this asbestos-caused killer cancer
Minneapolis, MN, February 25, 2006 --(PR.COM)-- On the one-year anniversary of the launch of their Vioxx Search Engine, Nielsen Technical Services today announced the launch of their Mesothelioma Search Engine.
Niche search engines or vertical search engines have increased in popularity, but the time and expense of creating and maintaining a search engine for a highly vertical segment of an available search audience is generally not a good investment financially. When asked about the financial viability of such a site, owner Chris Nielsen said, “We have some interested parties that would like to be associated with us and are exploring those options, but will not compromise our values for the sake of making a buck. The massive amount of money the asbestos and mesothelioma lawyers are spending have resulted in a feeding frenzy which has spawned thousands of sites and millions of pages of fluff, trash, and recycled content. I admit our site is expected to carry ads at some point, but that is not the reason for creating the site.”
Nielsen was then asked the reason for creating such a site. “I just could not find a central source to go for information where sites were not bidding or competitively optimizing for position and search engine ranking. Search engines are fighting to maintain relevancy but they are having problems. Many ‘scraper sites’ are only looking to get visitors that will click on ads to reach real content. If you try a search for ‘mesothelioma’ it should be clear what the problem is.”
As with their Vioxx medical and legal search engine, Mesothelioma Search Engine will carry no paid search engine results or paid inclusion of sites. The site has a form for visitors to suggest sites. The list of sites included in the index is posted on the site and available for download, a feature not offered by other search engines.
The company is indexing selected sites for those looking for more information such as patients, researchers, families, doctors, pharmacists, students, and those in the legal profession. This site is offered as a public service for those looking for information related to medical and legal information on mesothelioma lung cancer, or asbestos lung cancer for which there is no cure and is caused by exposure to asbestos fibers or asbestos dust.
About Nielsen Technical Services
The company is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota and has been providing computer and software services since 1988. The Internet has transformed the company from a hardware services company into Internet consulting and specializes in search engine optimization.
Contact:
Chris Nielsen
Mesothelioma Search Engine
952-943-0170
webmaster@Mesothelioma-Search-Engine.com
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