Roger Packs His Bags

If Roger ever tells you he travels lightly, don’t believe him.  You’ve seen this photo, which serves as evidence to the contrary.  This does look like a lot of stuff, I’ll admit.  But a six-week hospital stay is a long haul.  Even though we’ve met with the transplant team a couple of times, we’ve discussed Roger’s daily routine, and we’ve even seen the room he’ll be in, it’s difficult to anticipate what he’ll need.

Until two days ago we were not 100% sure this transplant would happen.  There have been many, many variables that could kibosh the whole deal.  It’s been a nerve-wracking three months of waiting and hoping the pieces would fall into place.  And, as Roger said earlier today, “Now that this is actually happening it’s hard to get excited about it.”  Certainly true.  This will be an adventure, but probably not a lot of fun.

The schedule

• November 15:  Roger is admitted to LDS hospital
• November 16 – November 23:  Preparation Phase (intense chemo to kill Roger’s bone marrow)
• November 23 and 24: Robert’s stem cells will be collected
• November 24 or 25:  Happy Thanksgiving!  The transplant occurs - Roger gets an infusion of Robert’s stem cells.  You can bet we’ll be giving thanks!
• November 26 – December 16:  “Early recovery phase”   About 2-3 weeks post-transplant, the new bone marrow cells should be starting to reproduce.  Roger will be at extreme risk for infections and for Acute Graft Versus Host disease during this time.
• Approximately at Christmas, if all goes well, Roger should be discharged from the hospital.
• End of December – March, we stay in SLC, during which time, Roger will be monitored as an outpatient for infections, Chronic Host Versus Graft disease and any other complications.
• Approximately March, if all goes well, we’ll return to Missoula and Roger will return to Dr. Nichols care.

 If Roger needs more stuff at the hospital, I can always bring it later!  <wink>