Well they say when you reboot that maybe you should power down, wait 10 seconds, then boot up. Perhaps that would be best way describe today's news.
Mom and Walt went to the clinic for the consent meeting with Ganguly. In case anyone's missed the last 6+ months of posts, we like Ganguly...a lot. He had a completely different spin / tone / bedside manner (call it what you will) regarding the odds of the full transplant. I'll try to boil it down to its simplest form here.
He's less concerned about the lower percentages of survival for 2 reasons:
1. Mom has a sibling donor. Most all clinical trials and therefore data thus far on these transplants were on open network donations. Not to mention matching on 10 of 10 criteria.
2. Graft vs. Host is the reason for the pessimism, and Mom exhibited zero (really even less than is ideal) graft vs. host in the mini-transplant.
This leads me to believe Ganguly thinks with completely doing away with mom's marrow that Walt's will have no problem 'taking over the house'. Sorry, but I had this quick visual of Mom stepping out of the house like she would when she used to travel for work. Walt would come and stay with Mark and me...so long as there were Lucky Charms there. Needless to say it was a little differently run house. :)
Now to the more serious stuff and bringing closure to my initial statement....
They did a bone marrow biopsy to assess how the blood was shaping up, and the preliminary results showed the leukemia has returned. This was the reason we had no time to spare in trying to get moving quickly on the full transplant so it was not completely unexpected especially when the falling platelets are considered. Earlier examinations had also shown Trisomy 8 (often an indicator of leukemic cells).
Mom did get to stay home tonight and will check in tomorrow for another round of induction similar to the first round she went through starting on 7.11. There honestly is a silver lining in this. Sure the transplant's moved back a minimum of 4 weeks or so now. Sure it means the hospital stay will be approximately 2 months.
However this will give Mom the opportunity to undergo a lower level of chemotherapy than she would have on the full transplant schedule. In my non-doctor opinion, that's not all bad. It'll give us a preview of how her lungs will react prior to subjecting them to more serious treatments that could encourage the earlier lung issues that put her into ICU. The concern is simply that another round of chemo is less than ideal.
So we'll report more when we know it, but for now that's what I mean by powering down prior to rebooting. It's not the exact same as hitting 'Restart', but while 'Shutting Down' and powering up may take longer - it's often cleaner and more effective!
I'm sure I'll have more over the coming days and weeks for anyone that's reading!
Conor
Mom and Walt went to the clinic for the consent meeting with Ganguly. In case anyone's missed the last 6+ months of posts, we like Ganguly...a lot. He had a completely different spin / tone / bedside manner (call it what you will) regarding the odds of the full transplant. I'll try to boil it down to its simplest form here.
He's less concerned about the lower percentages of survival for 2 reasons:
1. Mom has a sibling donor. Most all clinical trials and therefore data thus far on these transplants were on open network donations. Not to mention matching on 10 of 10 criteria.
2. Graft vs. Host is the reason for the pessimism, and Mom exhibited zero (really even less than is ideal) graft vs. host in the mini-transplant.
This leads me to believe Ganguly thinks with completely doing away with mom's marrow that Walt's will have no problem 'taking over the house'. Sorry, but I had this quick visual of Mom stepping out of the house like she would when she used to travel for work. Walt would come and stay with Mark and me...so long as there were Lucky Charms there. Needless to say it was a little differently run house. :)
Now to the more serious stuff and bringing closure to my initial statement....
They did a bone marrow biopsy to assess how the blood was shaping up, and the preliminary results showed the leukemia has returned. This was the reason we had no time to spare in trying to get moving quickly on the full transplant so it was not completely unexpected especially when the falling platelets are considered. Earlier examinations had also shown Trisomy 8 (often an indicator of leukemic cells).
Mom did get to stay home tonight and will check in tomorrow for another round of induction similar to the first round she went through starting on 7.11. There honestly is a silver lining in this. Sure the transplant's moved back a minimum of 4 weeks or so now. Sure it means the hospital stay will be approximately 2 months.
However this will give Mom the opportunity to undergo a lower level of chemotherapy than she would have on the full transplant schedule. In my non-doctor opinion, that's not all bad. It'll give us a preview of how her lungs will react prior to subjecting them to more serious treatments that could encourage the earlier lung issues that put her into ICU. The concern is simply that another round of chemo is less than ideal.
So we'll report more when we know it, but for now that's what I mean by powering down prior to rebooting. It's not the exact same as hitting 'Restart', but while 'Shutting Down' and powering up may take longer - it's often cleaner and more effective!
I'm sure I'll have more over the coming days and weeks for anyone that's reading!
Conor
P.S. I had to upload another couple of pictures of Gram and Harrison knocking around last weekend. Maybe we should have a vote on who seemed to have more fun.
3 comments:
what a beautiful baby I love your pictures.
Thanks Connor for the update, and Cathi we are here with you all the way, whether it's an extra 4 weeks or whatever! You get in there and think that mantra!
Love you,
Nancy D.
Thanks Conor for bringing us up to speed.
Cathi, Nancy's right when she says we're here with you all the way. You can steer this reboot no problem, Captain!
love #2 GOT
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