Pheresis

Please excuse the grainy pictures. I used my cell phone since the camera was with Dad at the beach with the rest of the crew. Hopefully I can post some better ones later with an old camera I brought if I can figure out how to get them off the camera.

William is currently undergoing pheresis: a procedure in which the blood is filtered, separated, and a portion retained, with the remainder being returned to the individual. The stem cells are the portion that is being retained in William's case. His own stem cells will be frozen and saved for later for his stem cell transplant. Hopefully enough stem cells will be collected today so we don't have to stay here tonight and repeat the process tomorrow. We should have the stem cell count results back sometime later this afternoon. We are ever hopeful that his counts will be good enough to send us packing!

This morning he had a catheter placed in his groin. It looks very similar to his Broviac (dual port--blood out and blood in). It was a fairly uncomfortable procedure for him since the numbing shot was not completely effective and neither was the sedation medication. He talked through the whole thing and periodically winced and whined from the pain. However, once it was over and he was brought to the pheresis lab, he stayed awake long enough to order some Cocoa Puffs and then fall asleep before it arrived! He slept for 2 1/2 hours.

He is awake and in good spirits, but doesn't want to move for fear of pain in his leg. He just ordered his lunch over the phone all by himself. He loves doing that and actually looks forward to each meal for a change. This mean, yes, he is eating. We've paused his TPN treatment (I.V. nutrition) while we're here. He's gained a whopping 3 lbs. since he started TPN last Thursday night which translates to approximately 1 lb. per infusion. Yay! Yay! Yay!

All the brothers have returned home and we are anxious to all be together. However, we were even more anxious to get to San Francisco because we received word that Soren threw up in the car while traveling home and then Clark felt sick later that day. So while the sick germs settle and leave, we are grateful to be away so we don't have one more complication in this process.

Thank you for all the prayers and fasting in our behalf for the success of this stem cell harvest and just the fact that it happened. We are so relieved this milestone has been reached. William and I have called it the first Big Little Hump. We have a few more to climb and they are only getting bigger, but we've made it this far and we are so happy and relieved.