Back at City Of Hope

It's starting to feel like Astronaut Training Camp. Rosina was out at City of Hope yesterday and today getting "labs", "consults', "pre-op" and being fitted for a custom body cushion that will hold her perfectly still while she gets radiation. That alone took about an hour and a half, which was pretty good because they said it would be two and a half hours of lying on some silicone inflatable with her face covered with mesh material to keep her head from moving and at the same time giving her four permanant pin-point tatoos to use as reference points for the radiation. That's when I start wondering when are they going to put her in a centrifuge to measure how well she takes the G's during liftoff. Rosina is doing a clinical trial, of which they do a lot at City of Hope, with a type of radiation treatment, called TMI, or "timmy" as I like to say, that doesn't irradiate your whole body, it pinpoints where it needs to work. It's a new treatment and is less brutal on your body. She did have a consult with Dr. Wong, who is the boss of radiation who told her all about it. And if you've ever had surgical treatment, you know that they always do this worst case scenario talk which in your mind becomes Very Likely Case Scenario even though you know it's not, but it scares the crap out of you. The great one about radiation treatment is - it can give you cancer! Anyway, I'm just purging that thought here, because we don't think Rosina is anywhere near any of the worst case scenarios, and in fact, expect her treatment to go well.

The treatment itself, however, has been postponed for a month. There are a lot of timing issues that go in to a Bone Marrow Transplant. Radiation has to be done at specific intervals, and the machines that are doing this specific treatment can get booked up. Also, a CT showed something that could possibly be an infection in Rosina's lung, and that has to be declared clear, and the other big timing issue is the marrow donor himself. Once the stem cells are "harvested" from the donor, they need to get into the recipient within around 24 hours. And in this case, that includes flying it from europe (we think). So you need to be ready for that and your prior treament (radiation and chemo) has to be timed just right so you are ready. Basically, you get a date from the donor and then back up ten days to start the treatment. And they could change their minds and/or plans. As of today, the long City of Hope stay is scheduled to commence October 29th.

Next week she's back to City of Hope for more prep stuff. Meet with the lung person, take a class in how to care for the Hickman catheter that has to be installed in her chest, see the doctor, and get a bone marrow biopsy to check on the leukemia remission status. Every one of those things is a big deal in itself and she has to do about fifteen of them just to get ready for the BMT. I say, I say, damn, girl! How'd you get so fly? It's a bit overwhelming, but she's hanging tough. The schedule change is a drag as that will now take her treatment up close to Christmas, but without any other schedule changes, she'll be home then. Thanks everyone for the kind words on locating a donor. That's a big step.
Please excuse the joke, but it's pretty true. Z - I'm very proud of you and how you're going through this, and you look bithcin', by the way. Keep it up, I'm with you.
xo
ph