We spent the last few weeks enjoying the welcome news that Cathy once again joined the ranks of the cancer-free! We even got it in writing!

This is a Doctor’s way of saying, “You’re normal again.” And you thought my writing was long winded…

This is objectively excellent news, but we still have one last hurdle to clear, which I have alluded to in other posts: a stem cell transplant. While there are currently no measureable traces of Lymphoma in Cathy’s system, it’s kind of like glitter, it never really goes away. Research shows that one last, large dose of a combination of radiation and chemotherapy provides the best outcome in terms of number of years before a potential relapse. For the most part, the body can handle this final onslaught fairly well. Everything that is, except for your bone marrow. This final round of chemo is effective at killing any remainging traces of the diseases, but also wipes out your bone marrow and effectively, your immune system. And your bone marrow is, um, well, pretty important.

So, how exactly do you rejuvinate your bone marrow? Either from a donor, or, in Cathy’s case, from yourself. Because her bone marrow was previously healthy, stem cells can be extracted from Cathy prior to her last high dose round of Chemo, frozen, and then after the Chemo is given and everything is wiped out, they will be unfrozen, and re-infused back into her (the ‘transplant’) to rejuvinate both her bone marrow, and in turn, her immune system.

The entire process is pretty intense, and very time consuming. Cathy kicked everything off this week with a minor operation on Monday to place another port needed for the stem cell harvesting. The harvesting process itself was a full day affair on Tuesday, Wednesday, and today.

The Harvesting! Whoever built this machine deserves an award

Monday – Thursday of next week, Cathy will again be in all day appointments getting two doses a day of full body irradiation. You basically sit in a room for five minutes and they nuke you in some fashion with what I imagine is a large X-ray-like machine. Next Friday, she’ll be admitted to the hospital where she’ll be given two chemo drugs. Because she won’t have much of an immune system, hospitalization is required until her counts recover which could be anywhere up to two and half weeks. We’re aiming for a Labor Day Weekend release date home, where she’ll still need to maintain fairly strict “isolation” standards for an additional two weeks.

During this entire period (both in the hospital and at home), isolation doesn’t mean no visitors, but visitors will have to wear masks and be careful with contact. If you’re interested in stopping by, please check in with me or Lindsay. All visitors need to be healthy, otherwise it becomes a risk!

Instead of house plants or flowers (which unfortunately can’t be in the room or the house) feel free to send her ideas on how to occupy her time: books, podcasts, tv shows, games, etc. She’ll have a lot of down time, for sure!

While this next month will be intense, we’re going in with good spirits and we’re looking forward to getting it behind us so that we can all focus on the important life events ahead! Thank you everyone for your support and well wishes! We all very much appreciate it.