.The next chapter in our little Odyssey began on a beautiful day in Duate CA at The City Of Hope Hospital,one of the nations leading centers for cancer treatment and in particular Bone Marrow Transplant. City of Hope is one of 19 prestigious institutions nationally that make up the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. The purpose of our visit to explore whether we are a candidate for Bone Marrow Transplant. We were in awe when we received our schedule for the day which looked something like this:
Arrival Time:.........................................12:55 PM
New Patient Visit......................................1:00 PM
Phlebotomy Main Lab....................................1:10 PM
Chest X-Ray............................................1:30 PM
EKG....................................................2:00 PM
Clinical Social Worker.................................2:30 PM
Dr. Anthony Stein......................................3:00 PM
New Patient Visit
Amazing, could a medical center be this efficient? Alas, by item 2 we were already 45 minutes behind and by skipping Social Work, we were able to see Dr Stein by 4 PM. So much for efficiency in health care. The purpose of our visit was the meeting with Dr. Stein and a bone marrow marrow biopsy which went very well. We were told that if we were going to do a transplant we would need to be in full or near full remission if that were not the case we would need to undergo additional Chemo therapy to get into remission. If we are in remission and one of Sharon's siblings is a match we could begin transplant in 2-4 weeks. He indicated quite a bit of additional testing would be required much of which we could do with Dr. Dreisbach in the desert. We then went on to the bone marrow biopsy. They had planned on giving Mom IV Demerol because prior biopsy's had been so painful. Unfortunately that wasn't possible so Mom could choose to do the test without Demerol or come back. Mom bravely chose to press forward and so Dr. Stein completed the test. Mom had almost no pain, probably because he does up to 4 biopsy's per day, a few more than Dr. Dreisbach does in a month. You don't know how happy I was to see the tube fill with bone marrow after 2 previous dry taps. After the procedure Dr. Stein immediately scheduled us back on Thursday to get the results and do the additional testing that he was going to have us do in the desert.
Our prayers now have to be for a blast of less than 5% and a Sibling Match. I'll update you on Friday Morning at the latest.
Mom in front of the City of Hope (What is it about Hospitals and fountains)
5 comments:
Sounds hopeful. I'm on the edge of my seat for Friday's news. As for the efficient schedule- come on, pops. What would happen if a hospital ran with that kind of ludicrous consideration and helpfullness? How could the doctors possibly do their job if you haven't been waiting in their tiny little room for over 40 minutes with your pants off anxiously anticipating their 5 seconds of time? How can anyone in the building work with out the proper seperation of doctor and patient, God and minion? It would be the end of the medical profession as we know it!
I think Hilary has a better plan regarding Health Care for our country.....I believe (contrary to Bill) it involves same sex doctors and interns for all incoming patients.
Or is that the Laguna Beach in me talking....
Thanks for the update dad, we will hope for good news Friday.
Well we are glad the appointment at City of Hope went well. We missed you by 10 min. Lisa wanted to say hello but, we thought that we had missed you already. My appt. started at 10am and ended about 12:20pm.
We had lunch at our favorite cafeteria. City of Hope has to have the BEST hospital pizza ever! Anyhow, there was some confusion as to whether blood was taken for the PCR/ABL test; thus, I had to return to the Lab to get blood drawn twice.
Everything appeared well, but my WB count was lower than what Dr. Zain would like. In a week she will have the results as to what the Philadelphia chromosome is doing in my bone marrow. Well, looks like you are doing AWESOME Sister Hendrickson. What I find is keeping a balancing act with the blood count, side effects, and test results. It's all in the Lord's hands, and there are two things I find I am grateful for: 1) To be in the US of A receiving treatments, and 2) Being on the Lord's errand...how does the hymn go? I will go where you want me to go...Ossil & Lisa
Great post, love to see the pictures. Its great to see Mom. We are looking forward to coming out on Saturday to see her at home. Thanks for the medical info, I'm not sure what all the numbers mean, but we are constantly praying for her and her return to health. Blake was saying family prayer and said "Please bless Nana to get her hair back".......sorry Nana, but it looks like you will soon be burdened with this vanity and burden we call hair. Enjoy the chrome dome while you can!
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