Conditioning/Preparative Regimen
Charlotte will be harvested on 10 October, after being admitted the day prior. She will probably stay another night and then go and stay at Ronald McDonald till she is well enough to go home again.
Logan has a scan on 12 September. If he has gone into remission, then things move as follows. If not they will give him further chemo in Hamilton, but the plan will still continue.
On 26 September, Logan will begin 6 days of cranial radiation for 15mins per day. We will be an out patient for this. This will be followed by TBI (total body iradiation), for 3 days (twice a day). We will be an inpatient for this - in the bone marrow unit. This will be followed by high dose chemo. Also on admittion, Logan will be required to insert a nose tube as he will develop mucusitis, which sort of means that the lining between the mouth and the other end will come away and he will be in a lot of pain... to much to eat. So he will be feb through the tube when this happens. It also enables them to give him medicines, rather than taking pills. This usually occurs about one week after the transplant though it has nothing to do with it, but rather a reaction of the radiation and chemo.
Day 0, as they call it, is the day of the transplant. This will be Monday 10th October.
The day before the transplant, Logan will begin a drug called cyclosporan, which suppresses the immune system. This will be decreased over time, which will allow his body to begin to fight germs again. But initially, of course, they dont want it to fight Charlee! This drug helps to prevent nasty graft vs host. They have assured Logan that they have an arsenal to fight this, so fingers crossed people.
On about day 8, they will begin to give him GCSF, which is a product that he has now, to boost the making of stem cells. His body should be producing neutraphils between 14 and 21 days after the transplant... this is the danger time. We are lucky that Logan has a 6/6 match with his sister, but there are still risks, as with all procedures.
We are home now till our new journey begins (except for our trip to have scans and our outpatient appts), so feel free to visit. You are welcome at any time. If you have any illness, though, please wait till you are well.
Well, that was overwhelming to type, so it must be overwhelming to read... so I will leave it there.
take care
keep smiling
Tracy
Hope to see you soon!
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