Articles labeled: t cell lymphoma

Man, this kid can’t catch a break. We wish her the best, and a speedy recovery.

Emily Miller was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia in 2002, overcame it in 2005 and was in remission until April of last year when she was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoma.

She was excited to finish chemotherapy this August.

But after recent routine labs, doctors told the family that Emily has acute myeloid leukemia. It’s a cancer that starts inside bone marrow and develops quickly.

Her father Cory Miller says Emily told him she didn’t want to die. She says she has about 10 fights left in her.

We’re huge proponents of organ donation, so we’re sure we would have made the same decision as Lisa and Jim Koehne, who donated their 15-year-old son Alex’s liver, pancreas and kidneys after he died from what they thought was bacterial meningitis. So imagine how crushed they must feel after learning their very generous act led to even more heartache:

But it was only after the transplants were performed that autopsy results revealed Alex had a deadly cancer known as anaplastic T-cell lymphoma — not bacterial meningitis.

“We were shellshocked by the whole situation,” Jim Koehne said on “GMA” today. “We had a lot of questions.”

Patient privacy laws prevented the Koehnes from ever meeting the recipients of their son’s organs.

“Two things we did think of [once we learned the truth], one, the recipients, are they OK? Are they all right?” said Lisa Koehne, who added the organ recipients’ doctors had be notified about the situation before she and her husband learned the truth.

“They said they’ll be monitored and looked after,” Jim Koehne said doctors told him.

After the operation, the recipients of the organs all showed evidence of the cancer. The recipient of Alex’s liver underwent three cycles of chemotherapy before finally succumbing to the tumors brought about by the lymphoma. The woman who received Alex’s pancreas initially responded well to treatment but she, too, later died.

Just want to emphasize that we are not placing any blame or fault on the Koehne family.