Stem Cell Collection - Hyperbaric (Habubrat)

Today we had our first of 2 days of stem cell collection. Their protocol requires a minimum of 2 days of collection. We are on Day 16 after our arrival and day 15 from start of chemo and stem cell collection preparation. Everything here in Little Rock is done outpatient from start to finish so it may sound a little different here and there, as Myeloma patients don't all get treated the same from place to place or even here in Little Rock where they tailor the treatment for each individual patient. We learned when we went to our first consultation in California, and again when we consulted here at MIRT (Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy), that Dave had had "extensive radiation" and it would make it difficult, though not impossible to collect the 20 million Stem Cells that MIRT likes to get for 6 transplants to be stored for future use. Using one immediately and a second within 6 months. I had a friend in Lexington, Kentucky who has a thoroughbred horse farm adjacent to a thoroughbred rehab clinic. They have a hyperbaric chamber for the horses. When they heard my husband had Myeloma and was going to get a SCT, they called and told me to get him into hyperbaric chamber prior to treatment and sent me a research paper from University of Pennsylvania that found using hyperbaric treatments on patients prior to stem cell transplant increases stem cell production 8 fold. I found a clinic near our home and during our consultation I asked our doctor if he had heard about the study and findings and if he would object. No and No. So we got 19 (we were shooting for 20) treatments in before we came to Little Rock. We had no idea if it really would help and no way to know. Yesterday the Collection Doctor walked clear over from another hospital building to personally meet Dave. They had estimated he had 50 MIL Stem Cells available for collection and would only need to collect for 15 min (as opposed to hours per session!). She wanted to know more about our hyperbaric as they have NEVER, EVER seen a patient with this many stem cells who has had radiation treatments to the extent he has. We still have to collect tomorrow as they have a required two day min collection protocol. Why is this so important? Well this is the best time they will be able to collect. After radiation treatments and/or stem cell transplant, getting stem cells can be a tremendously arduous process. They just did a guy post transplant, in his mid 40's from another facility, and after 5 days were only able to get 30,000 SC, and he needs 2 Mil to do a transplant. Anyway, I have sent the research paper to the collection doctor and they will be presenting it most likely to the research team and director. (If anyone else is interested in the paper, feel free to contact me, but you can find it on the web, U of Penn, Stem Cell, Hyperbaric and you should be able to pull it up. We did a standard hyperbaric protocol. 20 treatments, 90 min each, 2.4 atmospherics. (we weren't able to get all 20 in before we let and did 19 total, 2x daily with 5 hours in between, 5 days on, 2 days off - we were pressed for time to get them all in before we left.) Dave is doing well and we are through the worst of it. We have 4 more days of outpatient chemo and then transplant next week. Best, Lori