Stem cell harvest... from the front line.
So the day started early... we needed to get here by 7:30 in the AM. That meant leaving around 6:30 and that meant getting up (for me) early.
As previously mentioned in another post, they were looking at the CD34 marker and they were once again looking for that marker to be 20. In past attempts that marker never got over 4. We were hopeful that this new therapy would get the job done.
We arrived, they drew labs and changed her port needle. Then it was sit and wait for counts and most specifically the CD34. After waiting for about an hour or so... well, I don't know for certain because I didn't look at the clock, it just felt like about an hour... we had the number. It wasn't 20... it wasn't 15... it wasn't 10... it wasn't 5. It was a whopping 12.3... and that was good enough to get busy with the harvesting.
So it was off to radiology... not too sure why we went to radiology... anyway, we went to radiology to have them put in the apheresis line... in the groin.
Line in and back to the SPA and on to the machine. So day one of harvest is over and we're sitting "recovering" at Comer. With the line in her groin, she's not allowed to walk around and so bathroom trips are out and a bedpan is in. So one of the times it needed to be emptied, Emmah called the nurse. The nurse came in and assisted and began to wonder why we (Emmah) were using a bed pan to go #1. She then begins to talk about going in going in a cup. She then sez that's what the boys use. I'm wondering in my head, what... exactly... does that have to do with Emmah? It would seem that the nurse that came in to assist (not OUR nurse) thought that Emmah was a boy. Then upon realizing her faux pas, she couldn't stop tripping all over her apologies.
We have an early day tomorrow, and I suspect a long one since her hemoglobin dropped today to where she's going to need a transfusion and her platelets dropped by like 50%... 139 to 70. I'm thinking that after tomorrow, we're going to need platelets before being allowed to go home. In any event, we will do what we need to do to get this done and out of here... hopefully we will get a harvest that's loaded with copious amounts of stem cells. We should know what they got today tomorrow morning.
KEIYTAP
2 comments:
Oh, praise God....now we just have to pray that the #'s are what they need to get. Thanks for keeping the posts up to date.
Luv, Mom
I think about Emma very often and will keep praying for her, please tell her hello and that I wish her to be home soon!!Hi Emma, keep going forward sweetie....I will come visit when mom and dad say it is okay!!
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