Happy (re)birthday + post-transplant
Transplant day itself was a great one!
Ready for transplant to begin.
All told it took 1 hour and 11 minutes once the single bag of stem cells was hung.
Getting the bag of donor stem cells hung.
As if that isn’t good enough news on its own, we learned there were a lot of extra healthy stem cells collected that were more than what’s needed/used for transplant, so they will be frozen and stored for us to use in the future if we ever need them. They’ll be earmarked for us only and are good for decades.
Nick, Kristen and Martha during the stem cell/bone marrow transplant.
Post-Transplant
Today is day +5, and so far the transplant still is going well with no noticeable side effects related to the transplant itself from what we can tell. As far as we know this is due to a number of factors – we’re fortunate enough to have an 11 out of 12 match with our 24-year-old donor which is very high and decreases the chances of incompatibility, Nick’s great overall health outside of the leukemia diagnosis, as well as the regimen and prep our team has been/is doing. Currently we’re starting to deal a little more with the side effects of the radiation received right before the transplant (skin burns similar to a bad sunburn, nausea, etc.) and should expect to be feeling better/counts to be going up around days +10 to +14. Nick is still in good spirits and we both are so grateful for all of the continued love and support from everyone throughout all of this.
Until we’re released (which could be anywhere from 2-4 weeks after being admitted) we’ll be here at the hospital for close monitoring and symptom management until our counts convincingly trend upward and are high enough to go home where we’ll expect to continue post-transplant with daily outpatient appointments.
Until then we wait, find some good movies and shows, and tonight we’ll celebrate a bit by watching the 4th of July fireworks over downtown Austin.
