Rona Updates: Transplant!

May 19, 2023

Yesterday at about noon, Rona officially received her transplant of stem cells. It was a highly uneventful day with lots of naps and book reading, which is exactly what we were hoping it would be.

Rona had her last chemo drug on Sunday and is receiving her last planned monoclonal antibody as I type. She is doing very well. Next week we will likely see some delayed effects from chemo, including hair loss and extreme fatigue, among other things. For now, she's well enough in the afternoons to participate in her Outschool classes, and has regular visits from hospital volunteers, including a magician, a massage therapist, arts and crafts activity leaders, and a weekly karate lesson. She's also getting a lot of gifts out of the toy closet and calls her cousins on FaceTime approximately once every five minutes (I'm not exaggerating).

This week was a busy week for me, too. I wrapped up five days of twice-daily growth factor injections on Monday. Early Tuesday morning, I had a minor procedure to place a central line and then went to the outpatient facility to remove the cells for donation. I would be happy to give more details to anyone who is curious about stem cell donation, but will spare the masses for the sake of email length. We got 5x as many cells as they needed for the transplant, so Rona has enough to maintain her target level of chimerism (meaning the % of cells that are mine v. hers in her body) for the rest of her life.  

We are now in the waiting period, which is likely (hopefully) going to be the hardest. We are hoping my cells will engraft in the next couple of weeks. Until then, it's a watch and wait and deep clean around-the-clock game. Though the transplant itself is complete, we have another 99.5 days to go before we are out of the darkest part of the forest. 

On a lighter note, Rona also had her first call with Make-a-Wish this week to start planning. It was a good distraction and a great way to refocus us on why we are doing this.