Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Update on Dad-- Harvesting Process

Hello All-
Just a quick update. Dad is in the hospital right now, still at NWMH. He was admitted Monday morning to being the harvest process of his stem cells. Rewind back to earlier this weekend, he never ended up experiencing any of the harsh side effects from his 88 hour long chemo induction. He was tired, but luckilly, that was it! Unfortunately, he did experience the extreme bone pain from his Nuelasta shot, but it went away within one day. I was so relieved it was gone for him.

Anyway, he had to have a PICC Line put in (see photos below). They aren't able to do the harvest process through his port since it's only a "one-way", meaning the PICC Line will allow them to remove the blood & cells through one valve, and put the blood back in through the other. Think of the harvest process like dialysis. He's hooked up on a machine for a good chunk of the day having blood taken out, stem cells removed from it, and then blood put back in. I know he's feeling pretty exhausted from this. Thank goodness for iPads...

Yesterday, they were able to extract 9 million cells. Today we're hoping they can get the rest, he needs a total of 20 million extracted. If they are able to get the remainder, he will most likely get to come home tomorrow. He will also have the PICC Line removed. The next step is the actual transplant, which is still scheduled for February 10th. We want to thank everyone for your prayers and good thoughts! I will continue to update :)

xo
-k

Dad's new PICC Line

Dad having the PICC Line put in, a bedside procedure

The "harvesting process"

No comments:

Post a Comment