Bone Marrow Meeting

On the 3rd, Josh and I meet with the Bone Marrow team up at LDS Hospital. It was about a 4 hour appointment where Josh filled out some paperwork, meet with the doctor's physician's assistant for an exam and then we meet with the doctor and a case worker. There was A LOT of information! The short story of the process is that after his second round of chemo we will go back up to LDS and they will do an evaluation of Josh's heart, lungs and other things to make sure he his healthy enough to undergo the transplant. Once they get those results back and if everything looks good they will start the procedure of collecting his stem cells. They hook him up to a machine that will draw his blood. When his blood is being drawn the machine will separate the good cells that they can use. They will then begin the high dose chemo treatment, which will go in over 4 days. After the treatment is complete, they will unfreeze the stem cells and put them back in him. He will be hospitalized for 3 weeks while they complete the transplant and make sure that there are no complications. When he comes home I will need to be with him all day, everyday for 3 weeks just in case he breaks a fever or has a reaction he will be able to get back to LDS immediately. He will have to wear masks that cover his nose and mouth when he is out and about and he will need to be very careful of where he goes and who he's around for the first 3 months. It will take nine months to a year before he feels like he is almost normal and will be able to go back to work. It's going to be a long road to recovery, but he's pretty healthy this time around so I think he'll do pretty well.