We got in yesterday afternoon, we were both exhausted! The flights home were interesting. We had a lot of turbulence from Indianapolis to Charlotte. We both hated it, Josh was scared and had I been sitting closer to the bathroom I would have probably just been in there leaning over the toilet for the rest of the flight. The flight from Charlotte to Roanoke was not near as bad. Josh was fine and I only got a little nauseous. I knew I was going to get sick on the flight, I get car sick so that on top of really being sick I knew it was going to be an interesting flight.
So I promised more about the stem cell rescue. How that works is..Josh would go up there they would take blood out and get the stem cells then they would put the blood back. Once they got all of the stem cells they would give him two rounds of extremely high doses of chemo. He would not be able to leave the hospital until his white blood cell count returned to normal which could take a while. Each round would take between 4-5 weeks. He would get 2 rounds with a week in between. However, during the week in between he would still have to see the doctor everyday so it might not be possible for him to come home during that week. Once the two rounds are completed and his white blood cell count has returned to normal they will transfuse his stem cells back into his body. Because he would get his own cells back, there would be no chance of immune mismatch or graft-versus-host disease. He would have to have this done at Indiana University because there are only a hand full of people in the country that do this. The doctor apologized for us having to come all the way up there for him to tell us just to monitor it but he explained that Josh has a unique, complicated case. The doctor has only seen testicular cancer spread to the spleen a couple of times. So that along with the lung issues Josh has made his case very complicated. I was looking for a more definite answer. I hate not know and waiting. Josh is okay. We both want this to be over but we both have different opinions on what will happen next.
This post was posted on Saturday September 20, 2008 at 11:20AM
