Friday Update

Good news - Tia is feeling better, her fever has broke and therefore (from a fever point of view) she would be able to come home on Monday. She may not be coming home, however, if her counts drop as we won't want to take the risk of an infection. If that is the case, she may just stay at City of Hope through Christmas.

Here is what is currently the schedule for Dec/Jan/Feb (yeah, another 3 months).

December - She immediately starts to get Nupagen (to force the stem cells out of the bone marrow and into the blood stream) and some scans and bone marrow tests to insure that she is cancer free (other than in her brain). That WILL come back clean!

After it comes back clean she would have a Hickman put in so they can harvest her stem cells. For those who want the #s, her white blood count should be above 10,000 and her CD34 count needs to be at least 10,000,000 (meaning there are 10,000,000 stem cells floating around her bloodstream). Once she reaches these #'s (think right before Christmas), they will harvest 2,000,000 stem cells. This could take anywhere from 1 to 3 days. Hopefully she is home by Christmas for a week of recouperation.

January. The month of radiation. Most likely everyday for 4 weeks. This will be out patient so she will be driving back and forth to Duarte everyday.

February. A month or so in the hospital as she gets roughly 10 days of some new chemos (will tell you more when we know exactly) and then it is DAY 0 - the reinsertion of her stem cells! She will then need 2 - 3 weeks to make sure the transplant took and if everything works out she will be home by the end of February. Just in time for the NCAA as she is a big fan.

Have a great weekend everyone

Jess/Tia and the girls
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