Harvest Day 2

We are sitting here waiting to get hooked up for Day 2 of the Harvest. We had a good night's sleep in LA at Aimee's B&B, woke up and drove in early, actually arrived before the clinic opened its doors. Ha! That was a first for me. I'm usually 'fashionably' late.

I have no idea how many cells they collected yesterday. Our nurse through the process yesterday, Brian, has been doing this for a good chunk of his career. He's never done a child's second harvest. He was actually surprised. He didn't think they did harvests after radiation. I told him we've had three separate courses of radiation. Our onc is keeping our expectations in check. She has explained that even though the little bags are filling up, it really doesn't mean anything until they count it. I think they are hoping to just round out the half bag we have on hand for one full rescue. But, of course, I'm hoping we do better than that!

My friend Vicki asked me how long stem cell harvest takes. The short answer... we are planning for three twelve hour days, starting yesterday. BUT, the long answer...
First, you've got to have a disease burden that warrants a pretty high dose round of chemotherapy. We got that round inpatient for 5 days starting Oct. 18th, had a week off at home, had a week inpatient for the neutropenic fevers that tend to follow high dose chemotherapy. At that point, we started to try to harvest, then we came back over two consecutive weeks until his counts were just right. Hans has put up with daily injections of GCSF since the end of October. It would be a long haul even if we didn't have a 100 mile one-way commute to our hospital!!!

The amazing thing?? This boy! I was bracing myself for his trauma surrounding the shots to spill over to the rest of this process. But nope. He is handling it like a pro. It almost breaks my heart that he's such a good patient. Hans woke up from surgery yesterday to not one but two bandages. Dr. Stein tried to put the pheresis line in his right leg but it was a no-go. So, he got patched up on the right, and the line went in the left. The line is at the top of his left thigh. It limits mobility and causes Hans to walk slowly. He hasn't complained about it once. He only repeatedly asked how long he has to have it in. He did so well yesterday. He was pretty much trapped in the bed and he didn't shed one tear. I actually finally had to ask him, "How do you do it, Hans? How do you handle all this?" He just said "I don't know." He just keeps asking what he is to expect over the next couple of days, and most importantly, when we get to go home!

Thank you Tanja, for hooking Hans up with Lego:) Sounds like he is "sponsored", at least for November anyway!!! I love it.