Our five days off was great, not long enough mind you considering that we ended up back in here all day on Thursday as Gracie had some sort of allergic reaction to something. Sent us in to a wee bit of a panic as we didn't know initially what it was.
We were admitted last night in order to start the transplant procedure, which will consist of Gracie getting a bunch of different antibiotics, steroids and one chemo drug today all in preparation for the start of her radiation which will be tomorrow morning and continue twice a day for three days. On Thursday, which will officially be our "day zero", she will get her stem cells put back. We will spend today learning about all the protocols that go with transplant therapy, i.e.: she needs to be bathed everyday (this probably sounds like a no brainer to some, but when you are dealing with broviac lines bathing can be a major undertaking), her bedding needs to be changed out daily, her stuffies (oh oh - not the Bunnies) need to be washed regularly. She is limited on the things that she can eat, i.e. no berries or grapes, no granola etc..etc. and if you know Gracie these things are her favorites. But to be truly honest I kind of expect her to stop eating all together, so I am not sure on how much of an issue this will be. And well I believe that this is just the beginning of the diligence that must happen over the next 4 weeks and beyond.
We were also told last Thursday that they cannot give us any odds on this working. It could go either way. We will not be out of options if that is the case, we will just move to a donor transplant. But they will wait about 3 months from the end of transplant to do a PET scan, so we will do out best to live as normally as we can in that time and not focus on anything beyond that.
Hope you all have a great month and hope to see some of you in August!!
Love
The Sterks
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