Thur May 17 DAY 0- Transplant Day!

I am so sorry that I have not been able to post this sooner.  It was such an emotional day filled with anticipation, nervousness, anxiety, joy, wonder, gratitude and so many other mixed emotions ranging from one end to the other.  We went to the hospital at 8 am to draw more labs and were told that the donor cells arrived in the morning and that it was at Northwestern hospital getting processed.  I guess they still needed to separate out the white cells from the red cells. It was also confirmed that the donor in Japan donated the old fashioned method of extracting the stem cells from the hip bone versus thru the pheripheral blood.  From my research, the advantages of this method is that there is some evidence that the donor cells engrafts sooner or better, the disadvantage is that you may not get a lot of donor cells.  But given Connor's age and size, we had more than enough donor cells!  Connor just received Zofran in the a.m., had a decent breakfast and was able to just enjoy the day in the hospital.  The cells finally arrived around 1:30 and it slowly was infused at 1:57.  The whole process was rather anti-climatic- I don't know what we were expecting- I knew what the process entailed but I still just expected more fanfare because this was such a HUGE HUGE day for us!  I wanted fireworks, balloons, banners, candles, a marching band, but we settled for cupcakes from Swirlz. It was a wonderful day!

Our very Fun nurse Margaret with his new marrow! Look at the excitement!



Our family portrait of Connor's re-born birthday.

These are the stem cells towards the end of the infusion. You can see how the white cells are separted from the red cells. It was all very fascinating!

Connor sleeping thru the entire process.

We were released that same afternoon around 4pm. The whole infusion lasted a little over 40 minutes and they just wanted to observe him for a while.  Connor also received some benadryl prior to infusion and he slept during the entire time.  But of course didn't sleep for too long.  I don't know if I have mentioned this previously, but Connor has been going to bed at 2:30 am due to all of his naps at the hospital and it is exhausting.  We usually stay up and chit chat or we play monopoly on the ipad or watch sponge bob or read.  He really needs to get on a regular schedule! 

Once we were released from the hospital, it was another gorgeous day in Chicago and Connor and his dad went for a nice leisurely stroll around the city.  It is good for him to get some fresh air and good to get some exercise even if it is just a walk. 

We are eternally grateful to the generous person that gave so willingly of himself to save our son's life and for giving him a chance to live a long and healthy life.  We cannot wait to thank him in person. 

Please pray that he will have NO GVHD! Also, that his nausea will subside and that he will better tolerate taking all of his oral medications and absolutely NO infections.

Thank you and God Bless!