Amazing news from Mike!
Engraftment is Here; Hospital Discharge is Imminent.
Well, it looks like I have the green light on breaking my cone of silence. Bonnie got definitive word this morning that the cord transplant from back on August 4th has staged a late comeback and has now full engrafted. She will be discharged from the hospital either today, or, more likely, tomorrow, Saturday.
We started seeing evidence of engraftment over two weeks ago, while Isabel, Devon, and I were visiting. In fact, the (white blood cell count) numbers, started coming up sharply only two days after the (Sept. 19) second transplant However, those same numbers would spike up and then come back down somewhat the following day. This was further complicated by the following question: Who and what is cooking in there. There were now four potential sources of white blood cells inside of Bonnie: Bonnie's old immune system, plus the two cords from Aug 4, plus the new cord from Sept 19. Bonnie was an unlikely source, given the super-high-dose chemo and TBI(Total Body Irradiation) she had received prior to the first transplant. It was far too early for cord # 3 to have engrafted already , and they had already ruled out cords #1 and #2, as having failed to engraft given the time delay.
...But the numbers kept creeping up -- enough so that they let Bonnie out for a walk in the park (with a mask on) on the last day of our visit (Sept 26). Photos were posted. That was the first time Bonnie had been out of the Leukemia ward in 57 days.
This has been such a rollercoaster, that Bonnie requested that the team of doctors stop reporting the daily white blood cell counts to her each morning. We have been let down so many times, that she did not want to have to keep processing this info each day and obsessing over it. All agreed that we wait until there was a definitive trend-line before we starting reviewing day-by-day numbers again. Bonnie asked that I do the same with respect to my communications via the blog, etc., so as not drag all our friends and family through the same daily roller coaster, only to be let down by another false positive test result.
Well, that weak trend turned into a strong trend. And the numbers have now been relatively high and climbing for well over a week. You may recall that Cord #2 was a boy, and the DNA test results we got this morning confirm that he is the one cooking in there; 100% of the cells show a male genetic marker, indicating that he beat out the competition and has engrafted. Her counts are high enough now that she is completely non-neutropenic and therefore, ready for discharge. That will likely happen tomorrow morning.
Bonnie now holds the record for the longest period between transplant and engraftment. We will get more definitive confirmation on Monday with an additional bone marrow biopsy, but for now, there is nothing quite so telling as an immune system that is actively generating
normal white blood cells.
We are all walking on air right now, as you can imagine. What she now faces is a transition to being an outpatient, wherein for the next 70 days (estimated duration to be confirmed Monday) she will be living in an apartment in Minneapolis with a rotating chaperone, and will go the clinic each day. This would potentially put her home in SF around early December (subject to further testing on Monday and beyond). But for now, a huge milestone we can all celebrate.
...More to follow.
Mike
Well, it looks like I have the green light on breaking my cone of silence. Bonnie got definitive word this morning that the cord transplant from back on August 4th has staged a late comeback and has now full engrafted. She will be discharged from the hospital either today, or, more likely, tomorrow, Saturday.
We started seeing evidence of engraftment over two weeks ago, while Isabel, Devon, and I were visiting. In fact, the (white blood cell count) numbers, started coming up sharply only two days after the (Sept. 19) second transplant However, those same numbers would spike up and then come back down somewhat the following day. This was further complicated by the following question: Who and what is cooking in there. There were now four potential sources of white blood cells inside of Bonnie: Bonnie's old immune system, plus the two cords from Aug 4, plus the new cord from Sept 19. Bonnie was an unlikely source, given the super-high-dose chemo and TBI(Total Body Irradiation) she had received prior to the first transplant. It was far too early for cord # 3 to have engrafted already , and they had already ruled out cords #1 and #2, as having failed to engraft given the time delay.
...But the numbers kept creeping up -- enough so that they let Bonnie out for a walk in the park (with a mask on) on the last day of our visit (Sept 26). Photos were posted. That was the first time Bonnie had been out of the Leukemia ward in 57 days.
This has been such a rollercoaster, that Bonnie requested that the team of doctors stop reporting the daily white blood cell counts to her each morning. We have been let down so many times, that she did not want to have to keep processing this info each day and obsessing over it. All agreed that we wait until there was a definitive trend-line before we starting reviewing day-by-day numbers again. Bonnie asked that I do the same with respect to my communications via the blog, etc., so as not drag all our friends and family through the same daily roller coaster, only to be let down by another false positive test result.
Well, that weak trend turned into a strong trend. And the numbers have now been relatively high and climbing for well over a week. You may recall that Cord #2 was a boy, and the DNA test results we got this morning confirm that he is the one cooking in there; 100% of the cells show a male genetic marker, indicating that he beat out the competition and has engrafted. Her counts are high enough now that she is completely non-neutropenic and therefore, ready for discharge. That will likely happen tomorrow morning.
Bonnie now holds the record for the longest period between transplant and engraftment. We will get more definitive confirmation on Monday with an additional bone marrow biopsy, but for now, there is nothing quite so telling as an immune system that is actively generating
normal white blood cells.
We are all walking on air right now, as you can imagine. What she now faces is a transition to being an outpatient, wherein for the next 70 days (estimated duration to be confirmed Monday) she will be living in an apartment in Minneapolis with a rotating chaperone, and will go the clinic each day. This would potentially put her home in SF around early December (subject to further testing on Monday and beyond). But for now, a huge milestone we can all celebrate.
...More to follow.
Mike
posted by gbiddle616 at Friday, October 07, 2005
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