Michael McEndarfer-Lehto

Michael Henry McEndarfer-Lehto was born to Mark Lehto and Mary McEndarfer on September 7, 1989.

He was diagnosed with
Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia FAB L3
or Burkitt’s lymphoma (e.g., t[8;14]) on May 24, 2004.
The treatment of this specific, rare form of ALL (B-cell ALL) is completely different than for other forms of childhood ALL.

Michael fell out of remission mid-November 2004 and we ended up at Duke for TWO bone marrow transplant.
Michael's first transplant was on March 8th 2005 and it was an Autologous (his own cells).
The second transplant was Allogeneic - which was an unrelated Cord Blood and was June 10th 2005.

Thank you for your ongoing prayers for our brave son.


Mailing Address:
Please email for our home address

Journal

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Dear All,
Please pray for Paxten’s family. This brave little boy went home to Jesus Sunday and his parents are in need of tons of prayers at this time.

Mark and I went to the calling hours – it was so hard to look at a beautiful child of 3 that fought so hard. His little casket was so small and he looked so small laying there in it. THIS SHOULD NOT BE! I have lost count of the number of children that I have known who have died from cancer. Please dear Lord, let us find the cure in our life time.

Michael has been fighting diarrhea for the last 2 weeks – it seems to me that the GVHd just doesn’t want to give up. His arm has a bit of the rash, but it is in the same spot and doesn’t seem to have spread. Monday he goes to clinic to for all day IVIG. I pray that he doesn’t get the dreaded headaches that he can get with this drug.

Michael had to drop out of college – he found it just too overwhelming and was not able to keep up with the class work. We are working with clinic, counselors, etc to work up a plan on making college workable for him in the fall. I feel bad that I took my eyes off what all was going on with Michael when my hip broke. His counselor said that was understandable since I am Michael’s case manager.

Mark and I have to figure out things that have meaning to get Michael involved in. I need to fill his days with activities that he can handle. He doesn’t/can’t drive due to the neuropathy in his legs. Life doesn’t hand you anything simple at times.

In the next couple of days I have to track down a Psychiatrist who takes our insurance. We have also started the process for SSI/Medicaid for Michael. He can be covered under my insurance up to age 19 and then until age 25 if he is a full time student. Thus, we have to have a multi prong approached to insuring that he has medical coverage. IVIG alone is a $8K plus event every 6 weeks. Without insurance, I don’t know what we would do.

Please continue to pray for all the children and their families.
Peace,
Mary

Hospital Information:

We are at Home!!!

Links:

E-mail Author: mary_mcendarfer@hotmail.com

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