Thursday, January 15, 2009

"Go" for transplant!

We got the good news today that the CT scan showed "reduced inflammation in line with recovery from infection", which was good enough for Dr. Doney, the attending physician in charge of my transplant. She gave me the good housekeeping seal of approval and after the necessary consent forms were signed, gave the green light for the transplant! The whole meeting was relatively uneventful, though she did a mock drum roll when announcing the pulmonologist's report. :) The donor is also ready to go, and passed her physical exam with flying colors. She'll start taking drugs on the 22nd to release her stem cells into her peripheral blood, and then on the 26th will go in to have her stem cells drawn. I'll be ready on the receiving end and they'll fly the stem cells over and infuse me as soon as they get here. It's getting exciting!

So tomorrow I'll have surgery to get the hickman line installed, Monday I'll be admitted to UW Hosptal to start 6 days of chemotherapy, and the Monday after will be the transplant.

We are at dinner with my sister, Brian and my family to celebrate the "go" decision, even though it's kind of weird to be celebrating something like undergoing a transplant. But we're celebrating the chance at a new life, so that's pretty cool :)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great news! Go get em! :)

Farookh said...

woohoo!! wish you the very very best!

Anonymous said...

i second farookh - woohoooooo! that's great news steve! we're thinking of you!

Nic said...

That's awesome! You'll have to let Rachael & I know where you'll be at UW so we can swing by and visit when we're supposed to be working ;-)

rachael said...

That is such wonderful news! I'm so glad the transplant process will finally begin for you! Good luck today getting the Hickman put in. We will certainly be thinking about you. We'll be in touch about next week. Keep in mind I'll be just a super-long hallway away at the UW!