In a nutshell, Katie will be going into the hospital tomorrow, June 10th.
Week 1 - Pre-transplant stuff. Katie will receive a round of chemo therapy preparing her to receive the transplant.
Week 2 - Transplant. On the 7th day (or so), Katie will receive the transplant. It's pretty uneventful apparently. They just hook up a bag of the donor stem cells to Katie's IV and that's about it. This is typically called 'Day 0'.
Week 3 & 4 - During this time Katie is still in the hospital recovering from the chemo and getting used to the drug cocktail employed to keep both her and the donor's immune system suppressed.
Coming Home! (weeks 5-14) - After about 4 weeks in the hospital, Katie will be stable enough to be released from the hospital. She will be staying at my parents' house with Zach and I. For the first 2 months staying at home she will remaining somewhat immune suppressed. As a result, no one with even a hint of a cold will be able to visit with Katie. She will also be on a restricted diet, often referred to as the neutropenic diet.
Weeks 15-45? - After the first 100 days, they continue to reduce the immune suppressant drugs and Katie will slowly regain a semblance of an immune system and as a result some normalcy like the ability to be in public places. That probably won't happen in the first six months though.
As with some of the other posts, my explanations are clearly in layman's terms. If you would like a more thorough description of CLL, treatments, and related research a great resource is clltopics.org.
cheers,
-ian
Comments (3)
My thoughts are with you all, and all I can do is try to be there for Marlene and ease her school load a tiny bit whenever possible. You couldn't be doing this any better! What a great family unit. Zack is in such good and loving hands. I am just counting down the days until all is indeed well! Thanks for letting me a part of the blog. Best wishes,
Joan Deamer
Posted by joan Deamer | June 17, 2008 8:20 AM
Posted on June 17, 2008 08:20
My thoughts are with you all, and all I can do is try to be there for Marlene and ease her school load a tiny bit whenever possible. You couldn't be doing this any better! What a great family unit. Zack is in such good and loving hands. I am just counting down the days until all is indeed well! Thanks for letting me a part of the blog. Best wishes,
Joan Deamer
Posted by joan Deamer | June 17, 2008 8:20 AM
Posted on June 17, 2008 08:20
It was really great to see you recently and know of your progress, and meet Ann, and of course see Zak. He is the cutest guy ever! I can't believe how he will talk to strangers and is so charming. He also said hello when Ron brought him to school Monday.
What a great family.
Best,
Joan
Posted by joan deamer | September 9, 2008 3:43 PM
Posted on September 9, 2008 15:43