Tag: fuckcancer
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Days -3, -2 and -1
George’s chemo ended on Day-4 and on Day -3, he started his TBI (total body irradiation). The transport folks come and get him very early in the morning, between 5:30 and 6:00 and wheel him down to the radiation department. He lies on his side the entire time and the staff there plays some classic…
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Days -5 and -4
The day a transplant patient receives their new stem cells from their donor is referred to as Day Zero. The days leading up to it are listed in a T-minus manner, meaning in a way that indicates a specific amount of time remains before the main event. And the days after in the same way,…
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Here We Go….
Yesterday afternoon, we got the phone call we have been waiting for. We were informed that George has a bone marrow transplant hospital admission date of Saturday, July 2nd. The next day, he will start on his 2 day regiment of high intensity chemo followed by 3 days of total body radiation (twice daily). Then…
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Playing the Waiting Game
It’s been a while since I have written anything. That’s because I feel like we have just been waiting for the show to get on the road and for George to be admitted for his bone marrow transplant. But in reality, a lot has been happening these past couple of weeks. First, George received the…
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Friday the 13th
For the last few days, concern has been increasing over the fact that George’s white blood cell count hasn’t started going back up after this last round of chemo. Dr Ghimire expressed his concern on the phone when he called earlier this week to discuss the results of the blood work George had on the…
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Bone Marrow Transplant Consult #2
Yesterday, we drove out to UPenn in Philadelphia to meet with Dr. Loren. We hadn’t seen her since March and we were hungry for information and for some kind of timeline for the transplant. Well, we did get a lot of information. Some of it good, and some of it rather daunting. GOOD NEWS: Dr.…
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The joy of normalcy
In a previous post, I wrote that George had finished up his round of chemo injections and we were happy that we didn’t have to drive the 50 minutes to Camden every day anymore. Then I remembered that he would have to have blood drawn regularly so, maybe we were kidding ourselves. Well, the good…
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Wait, what? In search of a bone marrow donor…
After meeting with Dr. Loren at UPenn in March for a bone marrow transplant consultation, we got instructions to get George’s sister tested to see if she is a match for George. Jasmine, the HLA typing Coordinator, sent a test kit out to Liliane and, after searching high and low for an establishment that would…
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A New Week Begins
Today is Monday and last Friday, George finished up his injections of Vidaza. He is still taking the Venclexta pills for another week, though. We are both glad we won’t have to drive to Camden every day anymore….but are we fooling ourselves? Today, George has a follow up appointment with Dr. Ghimire and then as…
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This Is Spinal Tap
Two days after getting his bone marrow biopsy, George was back at UPenn for a lumbar puncture. The traffic was hell going into the University City area, but I’m starting to think that is just the norm. There is SO much there – The University of Pennsylvania, the hospitals, the research centers, CHOP (Children’s Hospital…
Diagnosis: Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). A Journey 