Hey everyone! Today was a relatively slow day for Jamie, medically anyway. Tomorrow, however, is another story.
Tomorrow morning she will be having her first bone marrow biopsy since the transplant. It’s essentially where they —->insert a needle at the small of your back and push it into bone, drawing out a sample of the marrow within <—-(If you’re not weak or easily grossed out, highlight the area between the two arrows). At Moffit, they sedate you for this procedure, at home they did not, and yes it does hurt especially since local anesthesia does not permeate into the marrow all that well.
They will be looking at her marrow closely to ensure the new stem cells are grafting and there are no cancerous cells or other potential issues. According to her doctors, for this first post transplant biopsy they expect to see a larger portion of donor cells and very few of hers. By the next biopsy she should be at or close to 100% donor cells which is where she needs to eventually be.
Think about that for a moment….. at 100%, her ENTIRE blood making/immune system has been completely replaced by another. The blood created from there on out will be totally that of another person. Yes, her blood type may change and there’s a good possibility she may be prone to the same allergies as her donors. Incredible!
But back to her biopsy. As I mentioned, this is her first post transplant test; at about 30 days. Her next one will be at 60 days, then 90, then 180, then a year, year and a half, and finally two years which is as far out as they’ve scheduled at this time. The two year mark is a biggie, by the way. Statistically chances of relapse decrease greatly after year 2 and then continue to decrease with each passing year.
After her marrow biopsy she has appointments with her medical team for the rest of the day and then finally at 5pm she has a CT scan scheduled to check her lungs. It’ll be a long day spent entirely at the hospital most likely being carted around in a wheel chair with her mom making her usual corny jokes.
On top of tomorrow, she has two endoscopy procedures scheduled for Thursday, or as Jamie puts it: tubes in both ends (we have good insurance, so they’ll be using different ‘tubes’). The endoscopy is also standard post transplant tests to ensure the new stem cells aren’t damaging other parts of her body.
Which brings me to the prayer assignment, which by the way, have we mentioned how thankful we are to have so many friends and family that genuinely care about us? THANK YOU! The prayer assignment: strength and courage for Jamie during her marathon 2 days; wisdom and knowledge for the doctors, nurses, and any other staff who will be caring for her; and finally, good clean results from these tests.
We need her to WOW her doctors with how well she’s doing…. to the point where they begin questioning the data. She’s been WOWing them since she was diagnosed. Let’s keep that trend going!
P.S. Special thanks to those of you who prayed for our friends Manny and Ellie. They returned from their regional cancer center with awesome news: Manny has joined the remission club! The doctors determined that he does not need a marrow transplant at this time and are working on a different treatment plan to keep him in remission and ultimately reach a cured state.
Please continue to keep this other young family in your thoughts and prayers as they continue their fight.
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Good luck…
Just a couple of additions: the biopsies also include 1 1/2 year one too and the CT is at the VERY end of the day at 5PM. I get labs and see the medical staff first. I will be quite sore and probably really tired tomorrow. LONG DAY!
fixed!
am praying today and always. thanks for another mention. and 2 different tubes?! hahahaha. thank God for THAT!
Good luck!