what lies ahead (medically)

As mentioned, God willing, we are preceding toward a stem cell transplant which medically is the best shot we've got at keeping this thing from coming back. Of course we know that our wonderful Sovereign God has us and specifically my medical condition in His loving and perfect hands so His awesome will be wonderfully executed which, of course, is a great comfort to us as we look ahead to what is, humanly speaking, a rather scary process. First, next week I have a 10th "omaya" procedure scheduled to insert chemo into my spinal fluid on Tuesday the 3rd followed by an ekg, chest x-ray, lab work and a visit with my oncologist Dr. Smith on Thursday the 5th. Dr. Smith will go over all the recent labs with us and hopefully give us the green light to start on the road to the stem cell transplant.

Stem Cell Transplant

The particular type of transplant I am schedule to receive involves harvesting my own clean "baby" stem cells, as they've described by the Clinic staff, having me undergo an intense series of chemo therapy that will basically kill off my existing stem cells and hopefully any cells that will ever turn cancerous, and then re-introduce my own saved stem cells back into my body. The schedule right now looks like this:

Nov 9-27. Preparation for stem cell collection followed by 5 days (23-27) of the collection itself. The preparation will include the insertion of a catheter that will be used for the collection and future chemo as well as two weeks of treatments (16-20th) designed to ready my body for the harvesting which is to begin on the 23rd and last for 5 days. Assuming the harvesting goes as planned ...

Dec 1-24 I will be admitted on December 1 with chemo beginning then and accelerating on Dec 5. Great care is taken during the chemo part to insure that infection does not complicate things as the chemo will be destroying my natural immunity system making the dangers for infection increase. The return of my harvested stem cells is scheduled for the 10th followed by two weeks of monitoring and testing to assure that no complications are arising. If all goes well, according to the current schedule, I'll be released for home on Christmas Eve, the 24th.