So far... so good. Sabine is experiencing minimal nausea and seems to have her usual unbounded energy. She is tolerating this round of preparatory chemotherapy quite well, though she won't be at her "low point" (neutropenia) until Thursday or Friday. At about Day 8 or so, if all goes well, she will go back into the hospital for a session of stem cell harvesting (apheresis). The transplant staff stays in touch with her, I inject two shots of growth hormone (neupogen) and we start daily lab work on Friday.
At about Day 30, she will go back into the hospital, take an enormous hit of chemotherapy (nasty, but effective, melphalan)and then be infused by the stem cells harvested earlier. At that time, she will be in relative isolation at the U.W. Hospital for about three weeks as those stem cells are "engrafted." About 10 to 14 days after infusion the stem cells start to produce new blood cells.
Our job now is the continue dialysis and work to prevent any infections.
Stay tuned...
