WooHOOOO! We are going home FRIDAY AM!
Dave is just being monitored now until Thursday morning when he will get his vertebroplasty consult and it is expected to basically be the consult AND resolution, i.e., injecting his compression fracture with a bone cement to stabilize his T8&T9 vertebrae. The expectation is that it will handle his upper back pain AND the pain in his ribs which they attribute not to bone pain but to the nerve pathways being aggravated by the compression fracture. Nerves wrap around from the spine over the ribcage and the doc believes that his pain in his ribs is radiating from the compression fracture. Its a very routine and common solution to this particular manifestation for Myeloma patients. After that we will see the doc and get our discharge orders Thursday afternoon and Dave will fly home Friday morning and I will begin the drive home from the airport. I will visit two friends in Arizona on my way home and arrive Monday night. Dave's parents are flying into California today to open up the house and get groceries, and care for him until I get home. We decided we didn't want him in the car for hours on end and staying in strange places, but to get on home in his own bed and get about the business of getting well.
He responded to everything exactly as he should without infection or adverse reaction to his stem cell transplant. By Day #12 he was in the place they wanted him and are now just monitoring him with labs each day. Its hard to believe after 7 weeks here in Little Rock we are finally done. We expect to return in a month for tests and then again in April or so for the 2nd transplant (3 weeks in duration).
I have packed some boxes to ship home and need to get all that in the works today.
Of an interesting note as well, some of you may remember we did Hyperbaric treatments prior to coming to increase his ability to collection stem cells due to having had extensive radiation. He made medical history in that and we have been informed that the Collection Doc has already contacted a neighboring hospital that has Hyperbaric and has arranged to send to her non collecting patients (due to previous stem cell transplants or extensive radiation) over to this hospital for treatment. If successful, it will become a new protocol and we are excited to hear the results of this endeavor and hopeful for these patients who have little hope if they can't get enough stem cells for transplant.
Best,
Lori
