Bone Marrow/Stem Cell Transplant Consultation

She had another round of chemo delivered via Spinal Tap on Monday. Treatment went well, and afterwards she had another meeting with her primary Oncologist. No significant new information from that one. Just a normal check up and review of the possible options.
 
I went with Anna today to meet with the Bone Marrow/Stem Cell Transplant specialist. Although everything thus far has been done at St Barnabas, this procedure will happen at Hackensack. They do quite a few of these per year and really have top doctors that specialize in this. We had done some homework ahead of time - The National Marrow Donor Program website really has quite a bit of really good information.
 
Today was primarily a consultation and to lay out the path ahead. Now that they have our authorization to proceed, the next step is to get the insurance company lined up and approved for what lies ahead. That should take about a week, and then she will have some blood work done so that they can find a match. This is a little more complicated than just a blood match, in that it's a High Resolution HLA analysis (some other day, I'll get into the more clinical stuff, but for now just wanted to get a quick post up to share the info we had). Given that Anna doesn't have any full brothers or sisters, once they have her HLA information, they'll begin to search in the National Marrow Donor Program. For Northern Europeans (aka white folks), there is about an 80-90% chance of finding an adult donor in this program. For hispanics, the number is less than that, but the doctor didn't have an exact number. If they are unable to find an adult match (which is preferred), they have an option to extract what they need from umbilical cord blood.
 
From the time that she has her blood work done, it's normally about 8-12 weeks before she'll be admitted to the hospital to start this procedure. Once she's in, it is 4 days of full body radiation (twice per day), 2 days of hard core chemo, then a day of rest. Then the procedure itself, and then the recovery session. She'll hit her low point about 10-12 days after the procedure and then start to rebuild. If all goes well, best case scenario, so that she'll be released from the hospital about 3 weeks after the procedure (so 4 weeks in total). All of this of course depends on a lot of moving parts, but that is at least the plan.
 
We're convinced that this is the right option to get through this.
 
In addition to learning about the process, we also reviewed all of the risks with the doctor. Lovely chat about mortality and questions about a health care proxy. As part of this process, it's unlikely that she'd be able to have any further kids... but we're ok with that as we have TJ and he's awesome.
 
We've had quite a few people ask about donating or being tested. Unless you happen to be Anna's full sibling, and we havent met yet - there is about a 1 in one million chance that you are an exact match for her. That being said, you could of course be a match for someone else out there who is going through a similar thing and could really save someone's life. I need to do a little more homework on this over the weekend, and then will post some information on the best way to be tested. Regardless of the odds, it's now our personal cause to raise awareness and help as many people as possible... Check back in a few days for more info...
 
Thanks everyone for the continued thoughts and prayers.