Not a great day - getting worried

We were back in the hospital for evaluations today (Friday) and we met with the pulmonary (lung) specialist as well as the program Director. They are becoming increasingly worried about the fluid in her lungs and have decided to hold off on the chemo planned for Monday. Fluid in the lungs is a concern as it is a potential indicator of congestive heart failure (the heart working too hard to pump blood around the body). They will do an x-ray of her lungs on Monday and decide one of three options: 1) start on Tuesday of next week, 2) delay a full week and try to address the lung issue, or 3) hold off indefinitely and consider other options. Of course we want to be as aggressive ans urgent as possible, but we also do not want to add risk if by waiting we can get a more optimal result. This is our first set back. We have been moving at incredible speed and have contacted the program, done the evaluations, been accepted, and done the stem cell collection faster than any other in the program, our aggressiveness and advocacy have paid off. However, now we have this issue ahead of us. We both hate going into the weekend with this hanging over our heads.

Even More

Day two of collection today. Chris has developed some side effects such as nausea, digestive issues, and fluid in her lungs, but they are treating those. Because they collected so much yesterday, they only did 3 hours on the machine today (yesterday was six hours). They collected another 3 million plus today, so about 10 million total - more than enough. They are watching a concern around fluid in her lungs, but she is able to go home. Overall good news on the collection, many many cells, some of which will be replanted next week.

Very Successful!

In order to proceed with the chemo, they need to collect at least 2.5 million stem cells. The amount collected depends on general health, blood flow, etc. They collected a whopping 6.2 million today! That is a very good result. The kids said she should get an award for best stem cell collection.
The procedure is similar to dialysis, but for this, they pump the blood from the catheter tubes into a machine, which then uses a centrifuge to separate out the red, white, plasma, and stem cells due to different densities. They place the stem cell layer in its own bag, and treat it like gold. We are all born with a certain number of stem cells, and will never get new ones, so they are very precious. They come up with a special box on wheels, wrap the bag in layers of bubble wrap and blankets, and then transport it to the blood bank. The woman who had to do this was told that if she were to see a bus coming at her, she is to save the stem cells first. It was incredible how carefully they treat this bag. In the blood bank they will freeze it and then thaw a portion of it for the replant after the chemo. So a great day for collection.

Admitted to Hospital for Stem Cell Collection

Today Chris was admitted to the hospital for her strem cell collection on Wednesday and Thursday. As she has heart damage, they want to monitor her very closely during the process. In some cases, Stem Cells are collected outpatient, but better safe than sorry. She is a bit nervous but knows this is a required step. We went out for a good dinner in Boston, and then she got admitted and into the bed. So far so good, we'll see how tomorrow goes.