Transplant is on the Calendar

This morning Clif was given an actual schedule for his bone marrow transplant.  Effective 3/17/2014, Clif and his donor will go through a pre-conditioning process to ready themselves for transplant.  The actual date that Clif will receive the stem cells will be 3/25/2014.

Our donor from Germany will be asked to donate cells from his blood. A medicine called granuloctye cell stimulating factor (G-CSF), or Neupogen, will be given once or twice daily to increase the number of circulating white blood cells and peripheral blood stem cells. About four days later, the donor will undergo apheresis. Two intravenous needles are inserted and connected to a machine that collects the peripheral blood stem cells and returns the unneeded cells back to the donor. Depending on how many peripheral blood stem cells are required, the donor may need to return in the next day or two for additional collection.

Our Recipient (Clif), while the above is happening  will begin his Conditioning, also known as bone marrow preparation or myeloablation, a treatment with high-dose chemo. It’s the first step in the transplant process and typically takes a week or two. It’s done for one or more of these reasons:

• To make room in the bone marrow for the transplanted stem cells
• To suppress the patient’s immune system to lessen the chance of graft rejection
• To destroy all of the cancer cells anywhere in the patient’s body

Once the collection is obtained from the donor, a medical courier will (with ice chest in hand) bring his collection back from Germany to LAX and straight to City of Hope.

Until Clifs blood count numbers improve, he will remain a resident of City of Hope.  We have great hopes of him coming home within the next week!