Christiana's Chronicles… A BMT Journey

The Vigil Family needs your prayers. Please read the update to see our specific prayer requests. 

 

For those of you who don't know what is going on here is a little insight:

 

On January 4th of 2020 Christiana and Chris took off to Texas Children's in Houston after many months of Christiana's lymph nodes continuing to enlarge and multiple failed attempts at other facilities to find a diagnosis . They met with an Oncology doctor who immediately admitted her to the hospital. Christiana underwent another lymph node biopsy as well as a multitude of tests and scans and the wait was on. After several weeks of research the National Institutes of Health discovered that Christiana had a very rare condition called APDS-2 with only 5 people in the world having her exact mutation. If you are interested in learning more about that go to: https://allaboutapds.com/ To sum up this condition it is a gene mutation of the PIK3R1 gene. It causes many health issues including an enlargement of the lymph nodes in the whole body and ultimately results into lymphoma cancer. Currently there is no cure but a bone marrow transplant is the best option for a better life.

 

After diagnosis Christiana began taking several medications and doing IGG treatments. She was released from the hospital in Houston and headed back to Las Cruces, NM the middle of February 2020. We added another Oncology/Hematology doctor in El Paso to our team to care for her closer to home under the direction of our team in Houston. After being home a few weeks Christiana got an infection in one of the enlarged lymph nodes in her neck that ended up causing an emergency surgery and landed her in the hospital for a 3 week stay. Once released she seemed to be doing well and the PET scans she had done every couple of months showed she was making progress. In January of 2021 the PET scan showed the lymph nodes were enlarging again with a larger mass in the belly. The doctor in El Paso decided he would watch it until May when another PET scan was completed. That PET scan showed the mass was even larger than the previous scan so we headed to Houston the beginning of June 2021. Christiana underwent another PET scan and MRI and it was determined she needed surgery to biopsy the mass in the stomach. At this point she started chemotherapy and our family of 4 spent the entire summer in Houston. At the end of August she finished the first round of chemo and was cleared to go home to Las Cruces for a few weeks until our next set of scans. After being home less than 2 weeks the lymph nodes in her neck began to enlarge at an extremely rapid pace so Christiana and mom headed back to Houston leaving Dad and Tristan at home. Christiana went through multiple tests and another PET scan which determined she had relapsed and she was admitted to the hospital. She was in an extreme amount of pain, could not move her neck and could not eat. She underwent another surgery to biopsy some lymph nodes in her neck. Christiana and mom spent the next 10 days in the hospital that included another surgery to put in a central line and port. While in the hospital we started a new treatment plan that now includes two different types of chemotherapy and other medicines. Her pain is much better and she can now turn her neck which is a huge blessing. Christiana and mom will be staying in Houston for quite some time to do chemotherapy and once she is more stable a bone marrow transplant.

 

For people asking what we need:

 

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Keri and Christiana Vigil

1907 Holcombe Boulevard

Box 40

Houston, TX 77030

 

Chris and Keri would like to thank everyone that has reached out. We especially want to thank our family back in Las Cruces and El Paso who are helping out with Tristan while Chris is away when he visits the girls. We hope this page will help keep everyone informed on Christiana's Journey.