At times it felt like this day would never come, but it’s finally here and everything went off without a hitch. Cathy has 120,000,000 new T-cells circulating throughout her body and as Lindsay aptly put it, we’re hoping this is the miracle we need!

Cathy got her central line placed early this morning. There was some concern circulating over the past 24 hours that this might delay the main event. She was absolutely laid out this weekend with some gnarly side effects of the “low dose chemo” (which completely under-advertised its seriousness). This resulted in some elevated temperatures and, at times, radiologists don’t like to place central lines in patients that may have fevers. Luckily, her temps were under control last night and this morning and so everything was (finally) on schedule.

Once she returned to the room, an army of nurses, doctors, and technicians ran through an exhaustive checklist, the cells were delivered (in two, impossibly small, 5 mL syringes) and ten anti-climactic minutes later, after a Chaplin blessed the cells, she is now half-human, half-robot.

It’s a relief to have finally made it to this step and Cathy celebrated by taking a well deserved nap. She’ll be monitored closely over the coming days to head off any side effects, but for now, we’re grateful, optimistic, and oh so relieved.