Ok, another quick post. I just have a hard time finding the time to do these!
Most of you are wondering about the CT scan and bone marrow biopsy from last week. Unfortunately I did NOT get the birthday present I was wanting. The CT scan showed very minimal decrease since the last scan (meaning the last 2 rounds did not decrease the tumor much, if any) and the bone marrow biopsy came back positive for neuroblastoma. Double whammy. A bit of panic starts to set in because the options are whittling down and the risks of doing a stem cell transplant with someone else’s bone marrow are just so high.
So, they had us come in on Monday for a CD-34 peripheral stem cell harvest. Basically, they take Eli’s blood, run it through a centrifuge machine and take out only the peripheral stem cells. The idea is that hopefully when you select out just those without taking all of the bone marrow, you have much less of a chance of getting neuroblastoma in it. However, the risk was that they usually don’t get enough cells because you waste up to half of what you collect once they finalize the process (this was a bit over my head). Basically, Eli had to be hooked up to a machine that pulled blood from one of his “pipes”, ran it through the machine, then returned it to him in his other “pipe”. One worry was that his pipes would buckle under the pressure of the machine, but thankfully they held up fine.
Eli sat for 5 hours with minimal activity and no sedation. It’s just insane how good he is when he has to be still. The lady operating the machine was quite impressed. Of course, the trade off to him not being sleepy is that he asks 1 million questions. So, if anyone needs a CD-34 harvest done and can find a machine to rent, just bring it over and Eli will do it for you. He knows everything there is to know about them now. 🙂
So the good news with that is that they were hoping for 12 million cells and they got 29 million. That meant we didn’t have to go back on Tuesday and do it again, which was very nice. So, we’ll see how much is left after they finalize the process. We’re praying for enough to do 2 stem cell transplants, plus have a backup just in case something goes wrong with those batches. The HUGE prayer is that they can test these stem cells and get a NEGATIVE result for neuroblastoma. If there is neuroblastoma in these cells, we obviously don’t want to reinfect him with them.
Another big prayer request is in regards to surgery. I’m going to go out on a limb and say today’s bloodwork will show he’s no longer neutropenic. Therefore, he’s ready for surgery. However, New York is having a hard time finding a date for us. They are completely booked and are now looking for overtime slots to create for Eli. I basically told them to get me a date by the end of this week or we might not be coming to NY. We need to get the surgery done so this cancer doesn’t just sit dormant and unattacked, continuing to grow.
Ok, I’m out of time. Sorry these posts are so far apart. Things are just slightly hectic at the Horn household lately. 🙂 Thanks for your continued prayers, cards, and posts. We appreciate you all so much.