Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation
After an incredibly long journey, Jeffrey’s new stem cells arrived at the bedside at 4:49pm. The cells began the day in the hands of a courier in Nuremburg, Germany. They were flown to Frankfurt, San Francisco and then on to San Diego. From the airport they were hand delivered to UCSD. After being checked and verified, the cells made it to Rady’s Children’s Hospital and to Jeffrey’s room.
The infusion of the new cells took about two hours. The premeds kept Jeffrey was asleep for most of the infusion. The entire family is ecstatic to make this huge step in getting Jeffrey back to full health. It feels like a giant weight has been lifted and we can now breath and more importantly get some decent sleep.
Unfortunately, this is only a small victory and many more battles need to be waged. The next weeks are going to be very difficult for everyone as we wait for the Engraftment of the new stem cells. Engraftment is the process in which the transplanted stem cells find their way to the Jeffrey’s bone marrow, seat themselves, and begin producing blood cells. It can take between 10 and 30 days for the engraftment process to complete. Jeffrey’s Absolute Neutrophil Count (ANC) will need to be above 500 for this process to be considered done.
Jeffrey’s ANC count is currently 760 but will drop to zero as his original bone marrow was killed off by the chemotherapy he received over the last week. Hopefully, with some luck, Jeffrey will avoid most of the discomfort caused by Chemotherapy-Induced Oral Mucositis.
Keep your fingers crossed!!
Praying for success.