Stem Cells

It has been a busy week. We have met so many wonderful friends and families here who are all going through the transplant process along with us. There will be four transplants performed in just one day on Charlotte's transplant day. The amount of patients that this hospital treats is unbelievable. Each child here has a rare form of some disease that no other hospital has seen. These children were all referred to CHOP. It looks like we came to the right place. (We knew this all along.) This hospital sees and treats the rarest cases of diseases from brain cancers to sickle cell transplant cases to bone marrow failure syndromes like Charlotte's. We are all each other's cheerleaders and celebrate every single small achievement together. Charlotte has tolerated the chemo conditioning process very well. During the entire process she was up, dancing, and playing all day. The doctors were quite shocked at how well she tolerated everything. (Even the scary thiotepa that can seep out if your skin and cause burns.) The days of a bone marrow transplant are numbered as such: You start by counting down Day -10 to Day 0. Her first chemo day was -10 and transplant day is 0. Then, the days count up after your transplant day as you recover: Day +1, Day +2, etc. The purpose of the chemotherapy is to wipe out all of Charlotte's blood cells in her bone marrow to make room for the donor's new healthy stem cells which will then become her healthy blood and bone marrow. A machine has taken all of our donor's bone marrow and filtered out the stem cells that generate all of the blood cells in our bone marrow. That is why a bone marrow transplant is also called a "stem cell transplant." From now on, Charlotte will have someone else's blood and DNA inside of her. The craziest part is her donor could be a male, so she'd have a man's DNA! They may have to make some new laws regarding where Charlotte can go to the bathroom. (Too soon?) Her blood type has also changed from her old type O+ to her donor's type which is B+. Charlotte's donor is referred to as an "unrelated" donor because she has no siblings that can be a possible match for her. Siblings are the only possible familial match for a bone marrow recipient. Charlotte's donor is an anonymous person who registered to be a bone marrow donor. The donor and recipient are not allowed to know any information about each other for one year. Then, after that year, we will hopefully be able to contact each other. On Thursday, April 28, 2016, Charlotte finally received the lifesaving stem cells that we have been praying for. This date will be known as her re-birthday, because the donor has given her a second chance at a new, healthy life. (As if having a daughter wasn't expensive enough, now she will celebrate two birthdays.) It was quite an emotional scene. The doctor placed in our hands, two syringes of cells that will save our daughter's life. The feeling is indescribable. The chaplain for the oncology floor wrote a beautiful blessing for Charlotte and blessed the cells. Then, the doctor pushed two large syringes of stem cells into Charlotte's tiny body through her line in her chest where she gets all of her medications. In true Charlotte form, we watched Elmo all the way through this life changing process. The entire process took about 15 minutes. Now, the hard part begins. The doctors have warned us that the effects of the chemo will now start to show up, and her body will react as she starts to make new bone marrow. The next few days will be full of medication to make her comfortable and let her sleep as her body is changing and healing. Cheers to a new, healthy life full of blood cells!