The Night Before Transplant and all through the house….

10/6/15 5:15pm-Here is a pop quiz...

Quiz question #1: What do you get if you transplant an A+ donor with a B+ recipient who has uber anti-A antibodies?  Hemolysis!!  Steven was well tethered to a plasmapheresis machine when we arrived tonight.  They were replacing his 6100 ml of plasma with 5500 ml of Albumin.  The last thing we need is stubborn Swedish anti-A antibodies fighting with German A antigens.

Quiz question #3:  What will his blood type be?  He will now be A+.  Will I really have to explain to anyone how our kids are all B+ or O+ when their mother is O+ and their father is A+??  Only a bunch of science geeks know their blood type.  We had no idea Steven could receive bone marrow from someone with a different blood type.

Quiz question #3:  What else was plasmapheresed out besides anti-A antibodies?  We held a vigil for 60 years of wonderful antibodies and plasma proteins.  Hopefully I won't have to find a pediatrician to repeat all the childhood immunizations, although he will have to have them all again.

 

Steven will receive an allogeneic transplant, cells coming from a matched unrelated donor.  So where are the stem cells now?  The gracious German donor received Neupogen 3-5 days ago.  His stem cells were harvested (could take 1-4 days) and taken to a lab to be cleaned and counted.  The stem cells will be flown to the US by medical courier around 7pm to LAX.  The courier must stay awake, gently rock the bag of cells every hour, and keep the bag at a specific temperature.  The cells will be taken to City of Hope where they will be cleaned and counted again.  I forgot what Steven said about how many cells were acceptable, it was in the millions.  Some poor lab tech going 1, 2, 3, 4, ……  Steven will receive his new stem cells around 9-10pm.

Thank you to everyone who have already donated platelets at COH, donated blood, set up a blood drive (save the date-December 13), offered to bring over food, prayed, is thinking about us, will take care of Koda, visited Steven at COH, and have kept in touch!  I apologize that I haven't been able to answer everyone but will hopefully catch up soon.