Monday, October 2nd

Hi

Just wanted to let you all know that we have a date for the bone marrow transplant process to start and fill you in on what’s going on this week.

Ker goes in to HFH this Wednesday morning and will have her new port put in……should be home mid afternoon sometime.

Thursday she will go for the remainder of her tests and will meet with the doctor one of those days. She’ll have Friday and Saturday at home and will be re-admitted in to the hospital at 2:00pm Sunday afternoon. We don’t have details of her chemo regimen yet, doctor will explain when we see her. Jenn has the details, as the doctor explained them to her during her testing on Monday, but since she doesn’t understand half of it she’s going to wait to let me explain later.

Jenn will start getting her Neupogen shots on Thursday, October 12th (still looking for long needles, hee, hee) and will continue with two shots a day through Monday, October 16th. Jenn will then check into the hospital at 7:30am on Monday, October 16th to have a catheter placed in her groin. After the catheter has been placed, she will be moved upstairs to begin the process of taking her stem cells. We won’t go into any of the details about how this is done other than to say they take the blood out, take the stem cells they need and then put the blood back in. The whole process will last about 4 hours. If you would like more gruesome details, just ask Jenn.. She’s  has a few days to try to get used to the thought  of what fun this is going to be :). After the procedure Jenn will be moved to another room to await the answer on whether or not they got enough stem cells. If so, the catheter will be removed and she will be finished. If not, they will admit her into the hospital and the process will be done again on Tuesday, October 17th. Kerrie will undergo the actual transfusion of the stem cells based on whether or not they get enough on the 16th.. so transfusion will take place on October 16th or 17th.

We’ll let you know Kerrie’s new room number and telephone number as soon as we have it. She will be on the same floor, just a different room.

Until then, Kerrie is talking callers at her home address……. 🙂 Please visit her, if you get the chance, before she goes back into the hospital.

Keep praying everyone, the big one is coming up……….
Thanks for everything you’ve already done……..Kerrie (and Jenn and I) send our love.

Joan ( with a few additions from Jenn)