Ryan has been home for 4 days now!!!
We met his new oncologist today. What a relief!! Not only is he a nice guy, he's articulate& thorough and comes highly recommended. He laid out what will transpire over the next few weeks:
-Frequent CBCs (Complete Blood Counts) to follow his chemo response and be sure he doesn't need transfusions of RBCs or platelets
-Bone marrow biopsy in about 2 weeks
-Follow up with him on July 6th
The next steps in chemo will be determined after the marrow biopsy results.
Dr. Zackon informed us he'll be out of town for the next week on vacation, and arranged for follow-up while he is gone to be sure things are done on schedule. I can't tell you how reassuring it is to know that Ryan's out-patient care will be well managed.
He also discussed the benefits of marrow transplant in people in whom they are unable to achieve remission with chemo - the new stem cells recognize the cancer cells as foreign invaders and destroy them!! I hadn't realized that that happened - it's the beneficial part of the graft vs host reaction that occurs with transplants. He says in some people if they look really hard they can still find cancer cells, but because the new immunity can clear them the cancer cells don't occur in large enough numbers to cause problems.
Interesting that the same process that can damage body organs can assist in eliminating the cancer cells. What an incredible balancing act the transplant physicians must do to optimize the beneficial aspects while protecting the recipient from the damaging effects.
We meet with the transplant team next Thursday in Boston. We'll have more details after that.
Yesterday Ryan got their new car insured, inspected and registered; today Sophia got to drive to work in an air conditioned car. With temps in the high 80s, that has to be a lot more comfortable than their old ride.
It was a long day yesterday, but we got Shannon and Tofu delivered to her apartment in Brooklyn, then we went to the Museum of Natural history (air conditioned - the temp was near 100)and saw an IMAX movie about orphaned elephants and orangutans being raised to survive in the wild. Kaia picked the exhibit of the origins of man and MeiLin picked minerals. Both were great. I think MeiLin may be a geologist some day - she was ecstatic dashing from one beautiful stone to the next. Dinner in Chinatown, metro back to Brooklyn and two sleeping girls before we left New Jersey, getting home around midnight.
Grilled supper on the patio. Ryan and Sophia went for a walk on nearby nature trails. No cat yowling (but I actually miss Tofu - she's got lots of personality).
Looking for advice - we need to get rid of our 4 female pet mice before Ryan's transplant. Anybody's kid dying for pet mice? They come complete with food, bedding & cages......
We thought of having Tofu take care of it for us, but she was clearly above expressing any interest in rodents.
Hoping for a quiet weekend at home.
---Barb
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