10/14/12

John received Zacchary's and Michael's (in that order) T cells on Friday night.  Once they were both in there, he said he felt like the living room where they used to rumble as kids.  John is having graft v host disease but that is expected and intended during this part of the treatment.  The T cells should destroy any remaining marrow and cancer cells.  Tomorrow (Monday) and Tuesday, chemotherapy will be administered to eliminate the T cells so that the graft v host reaction does not get out of control and since the T cells will have had their maximum beneficial effect by then.

During this phase John has pretty dramatic flu-like symptoms.  Those should begin to improve mid-week after the chemo on Monday and Tuesday.  In spite of feeling generally lousy, he is supposed to be up and walking as much as possible.  He is one of the very few patients we see on the bone marrow transplant unit who is able to follow this recommendation.  He continues to exceed expectations.

Michael and Zacchary will be donating stem cells all day Tuesday and Wednesday; John will receive them Thursday and then we wait for engraftment.  It has been great having M and Z here; they have really livened up visiting hours and have been fantastic chauffeurs back and forth to Phila.  We will miss them as they head back to their own busy lives; but, now we will always have a piece of them with us.  Or, at least one of them in case one of their immune systems eventually supplants the other one.  This is a fantastic science experiment in many ways; for instance, John's blood type may change to one of theirs.  Seth wasn't identified as one of John's donors for the double transplant but he has given us tremendous support especially in explaining some of the medical hocus pocus  I don't use the term medical hocus pocus lightly; even John's doctors and nurses say much about the process isn't well understood; they just have a track record of what seems to work and describe at least parts of it as "magic". 

From now on, we will post updates to our Google blog From the Honey Badger's Burrow.  Many thanks to our nephew and his partner who provided endless hours of entertainment with the Honey Badger You Tube Video after which John named the blog; and many thanks to our kids who discovered and sent honey badger paraphenalia for John's recent birthday providing some laughs in the bmt unit.  There are always laughs wherever John is; some things never change :)

Prayers, positive thoughts, good vibrations, email and blog posts are all very welcome.  Thank you for your continuing support.