Off to the Races

"Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us." 

- Samuel Smiles

After months of preparation the journey has begun. After eating a big breakfast of chocolate pancakes with chocolate chips and whip cream at IHOP, Becky dropped us off at NIH and then Elise checked into the hospital. Becky couldn't join us because she's still coughing and recovering from the head cold she came down with. Officially, Elise isn't anticipated to be discharged until late July, 30-45 days after "day 0", they day they infuse the donor's stem cells.

First up was the typical intake questions and vitals taking. The same questions are asked about 5 times by 5 different people, on purpose so that they make sure they get a complete an accurate story. Same with the vitals.

Next, Elise got an IV placed. They only needed to draw some more blood today, but the procedure to place the Hickman catheter is real early in the morning tomorrow so they got the IV part out of the way already. I doubt that means we'll get to sleep in any later though.

After the blood draws there was a pre-anesthesia consult. I always wondered why they check your neck flexibility. Apparently they're checking to see if they can easily insert a breathing tube if necessary. They also always ask if you know what procedures you're having done. I'm not sure why they do this, hopefully it's not a double check of their paperwork!

The last thing was a candida test. I was curious about this one, but it's simply a double check of another test. Apparently everyone has been exposed to candida so everyone should test positive for it. If you test negative then it's most likely an indicator that the test methodology doesn't work on you for some reason. So they administer the test in the same way they test for TB (a small bolus under the skin on the forearm). That way, they can double check that a "negative" TB result wasn't a "false negative". Pretty clever, but it also shows the importance of getting these right.

Tonight will be the first night of many spent in the hospital in the coming weeks. Hopefully Becky and I will be able to switch off as planned because I'm not sure how much "Turtleman" on Animal Planet I'll be able to take. Not that I have to watch it, but Elise loves the show for some reason and insists on watching it when we let her watch TV. (Fortunately we don't get Animal Planet at home). An episode is fine, but she'll watch 2 hours of the show if we let her.

Elise's room is a private room with special air handling. They said the air is handled separately and specially filtered for this room. I think the nurse said there were 4 rooms like it on the wing. It's pretty large and they've said we can rearrange it however suits us. They've even said we can decorate the walls short of painting them. There are several chairs and a small single-sleeper love seat where Becky or I will spend the night. Only one caregiver is allowed (and also required) to spend the night, although "spend the night" is apparently loosely defined as we can stay very late and come back very early.

So we're off and running. Tomorrow Elise will have the Hickman catheter placed and they'll also take a bone marrow sample. I suspect she'll have some pain and they've said she'll need to lie reclined for quite a while afterward. We may also hear something about the success of the donor's apheresis as it should be started and possibly finished tomorrow (in Germany a few hours ahead of us).

There isn't anything planned for Saturday so we're hoping Elise will get a "pass" and we'll be able to get out and do something (she wants to see Godzilla) before they start with the medications that require closer monitoring.