October 24, 2010 Count down to Halloween!

It has been a super busy week, Jason and Jayden were here, birthday parties, play dates and all the rest!
We are all doing great, Adrian has had a good week, completely back to normal.
Working away with Jason like crazy.
In the beginning, in the spring, I used to tell him to stop working and rest and take it easy. Now I leave it up to him to feel how much he can cope with. I think working for him is the anti venom for chemo. It keeps his mind off it and we all know he is a WORKAHOLIC. Can't change that :)

It will be a little longer between the chemo cycles this time (second and third). We are going down to Houston for just a day to do the re-staging (PET, CT & Bone marrow biopsy). Then I hope we will find out the course of how it will all come together. Harvesting of stem cells, admitted to hospital and the actual transplant.
The fourth round of chemo will be in the hospital, if I have understood things right. Not sure if it will be ICE or something else. I have a feeling it will be something a lot stronger since they have to get him down to zero immune system. That is why he will be admitted one week before the transplant takes place.

Michelle, Dr. Alousi's transplant coordinator called this week. She said when she did the wide search on donors she found 70 possible ones. Out of them, they will pick out 5-6 who they will ask to do a blood test and then see how close of a match they are. Basically they look at the ones that have done like the swab test that I did and then they have to look closer and closer.
The ultimate match is a 10/10, sometimes they can even use a 9/10 or an 8/10 depending on what does not match. They will look for someone who matches Adrian's HLA tissue type. HLA stands for human leukocyte antigen, a marker your immune system uses to recognize which cells belong in your body and which do not.

I am not that knowledgeable about this - YET!! It is the next level in the quick nurse degree that I have received while reading about cancer and asking questions.  :) :) I think I should qualify for a PhD before the end of the year!

In short - It is all good in this camp!