How Transplant Expected to Go Down

As I write this blog update, we are now only two days from when the ball will really start rolling. We had our last meeting with Ray’s transplant doctor this morning & ALL SYSTEMS ARE GO for Sunday’s admission.

Because several folks have asked us for more details about just what’s going to happen when Ray goes into the hospital, I thought it easier to update my blog with those details, thus today’s post.

Sunday evening will be the first day of Ray’s ‘conditioning chemo’. This will consist of four consecutive days of his receiving high intensity chemo to destroy all of his stem cells (both the good & bad cells). This is necessary so that when they transplant the donor’s stem cells into Ray’s body, those foreign donor cells won’t attack their new home which is Ray’s body. This chemo will also take Ray’s immunity down to zero, thus one of the reasons for the need for hospital isolation for a month. They tell us that Ray won’t really begin to feel the common side effects of the chemo until a week or so after he receives it. Those could include nauseousness & extreme fatigue among other things. So the chemo will be administered Sun – Mon – Tues – Wed. Day 5 (Thursday) will be a day of rest.

On the 6^th day (Friday) the transplant will occur. One misconception by many about the transplant is that folks automatically think a transplant is surgery. In this type of transplant it is NOT surgery. Rather it is similar to a blood transfusion, but with stem cells that have been harvested from a donor’s blood. It’s a fairly simple procedure to transplant the donor’s good stem cells into Ray’s body. It’s from this point forward when a really close eye must be kept on Ray to see how his body reacts to the new cells.

One of the biggest problems that can happen is that when the donor stem cells make their own immune cells in Ray’s body, the new cells may see the patient’s cells as foreign and turn against their new home. They could possibly attack vital organs like his kidneys, liver, heart, etc. This type of attack is called graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and can cause a multitude of problems. Most transplant patients experience at least some of these problems but to what extent varies from patient to patient. The problems can range from mild to very serious but they do have drugs to combat any issues that would occur. We are hopeful that because Ray is having this transplant while he’s still in relatively good shape AND because the donor is an 18 year old young man with good healthy cells, he will not experience most of the serious problems associated with GVHD. Thus another reason for the month he must remain in the hospital with around the clock monitoring.

Hopefully this answered the questions some of my blog followers may have had & cleared up any confusion on the subject. It’s now time to pack Ray’s suitcase & get on with this journey.