The process of a Bone Marrow Transplant is totally overwhelming and confusing so I thought I would give a quick rundown of what our time here will look like.
Yesterday we had her central line placed. This line is surgically implanted in the vein above her heart and will serve as the location where all drugs and chemo (ok most, she still has to choke down a few antibiotics and such by mouth) will go in. Then blood will come out for all of the tests they need to run and if she were to require transfusions during this time. Tremendous upside- no needle sticks for any of this work! Tremendous downside- she's trailing around an IV tree and her "tubies" for the next several weeks.
The timeline reads as -10 days prior to transplant, day 0 is transplant day, and then they count positively up as we wait for all of her counts to go up.
Days -10 through -1
Conditioning- Chemotherapy, Immune suppressants, antibacterials and anti-fungals, etc.
Day 0 (March 9)
Ainsley will come down and our Oncologist will harvest her marrow via an outpatient procedure. She'll have pain and discomfort but otherwise will do quite well and should rebound quickly.
Days +1 and beyond
She will have daily Complete Blood Counts (CBCs) run and I assume tons of blood panels as we watch her numbers climb. They don't appear immediately, each type of cell has a range of time when they appear. Her doctor said that in ideal conditions (which he expects) we would then be discharged between days +21 and +28.
There's obviously a lot more to it, some that I understand and some that is going over my head. But hopefully that gives everyone a better idea of what we're doing here!
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