This week is
cycle 1 of high dose chemotherapy with stem cell rescue/stem cell transplant. It is going to be tougher on Liam than the
first 3 induction cycles of chemo that Liam had. Liam is now “handed over” to
the BMT (bone marrow transplant) doctors and nurses for this part of chemo.
This week:
Tuesday – 2 types
of chemo
Wednesday –
2 types of chemo
Thursday – “rest
day”
Friday -
stem cell transplant
Back in May,
Liam had the apheresis, where they connected him to a machine and got “4 bags”
of stem cells from Liam. On Friday, Liam will be getting “1 bag” of his stem
cells back. They have been frozen since May, on Friday they will thaw them in
Liam’s room and he’ll get them back through his central line. There is less
risk of rejection, because it is Liam’s own stem cells, but there is risk with
reaction to the preservative used for freezing.
The chemo
will destroy Liam’s bone marrow (to hopefully kill all cancer cells that
remain) then his frozen cells are given back to him to start normal cell
production. (I have no idea if I am saying this right)
Liam’s blood
cell counts will all drop as expected, he will likely need transfusions as he has
with his other chemo cycles. He will also get the G-CSF shots, as he did in the
first 3 cycles. The C-CSF stimulates the blood cell production to help get his
counts up.
After this week, Liam will be
kept in the hospital for the recovery phase, they can’t say how long he will be
in the hospital for, but Sept 4 might be the soonest Liam gets out. Best case,
we get a week at home in between cycles, and the worst case is that we could
stay in the hospital for all 3 cycles, which is 3 months.
These are 28
day cycles, but they could be shorter or longer, depending on how Liam does, they move onto the next cycle when the blood counts are back up.
0 comments:
Post a Comment