Saturday, June 09, 2007

 

Four Years and Relay For Life

Today is Relay for Life. I decided to check on the date for Devin's second transplant and discovered it was today! Four years ago, we brought Ryan in to donate bone marrow to give to Devin. Here is what I had written at the time:

Day Zero...Transplant Day!

Today was the big day, Day Zero or Transplant Day. Ryan was not scheduled for surgery until 2:30 pm but on the off chance we could get an earlier time, he could not eat anything after midnight and only clear liquids until 9 am. Greg, Kierynn, Ryan and I went down to hang out with Devin while we waited. He was started on levoquin yesterday, an antibiotic.

Dr Frangoul came in to check on us as did Becky, one of the transplant nurses. Since Ryan was part of a study in using the GCSF shots in child donors, we filled out some papers on how he reacted to it and if he had any problems. Since he didn't even say ouch in the 5 days he got the shot, that went very quickly.

We had to be down in the Pediatric Surgery area by 12:30 with Ryan so we went down and waited. And waited. And waited. About 2 pm, Greg went back up to Devin's room to check on him. When he got up there, Kristen called and said that the Surgery people had called the house and said if we were not there immediately, the surgery would be cancelled! Greg ran back downstairs, went storming back into the surgery area to point out that we HAD been out there for almost 2 hours. He found the correct person, who said a mix up in paperwork had caused the mild panic. Everything got cleared and Ryan was called back to his room.

Once there, he got his vitals and such taken care of. He opted to not take the versed, a mediacation to relax him, since he doesn't like the taste. He was fully awake as they wheeled him back. He did request a root beer smell in the mask to put him to sleep. There are all kinds of scents that he got to choose from. Once he was put under, an IV was started and he got a caudel block.

Greg and I went back up to Devin's room to wait with him while Ryan was in surgery. An hour after he went in, we had Dr Frangoul come in to tell us that they were very pleased with the results and the marrow was currently on the way to lab to check it out. Ryan was still in recovery when I went upstairs to be there when the bone marrow was started.

Up in Devin's room, Dr Frangoul let me know that they had gotten the same volume from Ryan as they had 2 years ago but with 50% more cells...which is what they wanted to see happen with him getting the GCSF shot. Devin was given cortisone and benadryl and then Ryan's bone marrow was brought in. There were two bags of bone marrow, for a total of about 300 mg. It took a little over 3 hours to give it all to Devin and he had no reactions to it.

Ryan stayed down in recovery for quite awhile since he was feeling pukey but close to 8 pm, he came up to Devin's room. Both boys were pretty well down for the count by that time and mumbled at each other. Kristen came up to spend the night with Devin.

Both the boys got a stuffed leopard today. Ryan has a normal leopard that he named Tropic and Devin got a snow leopard he named Snow.

Devin's counts today are not handy but I believe his WBC was 0.4 PCV 22 and platelets were not back yet. They will jump tomorrow from getting the bone marrow.

It was quite a day and so hard to believe it has been 4 years already! Devin was honored as a Survivor today at a luncheon for Relay for Life. We got a picture of both boys, which I will get scanned in.

There is a problem with the archives at the moment, not sure why. Not to worry, they are all still here, I just can't get the link active on the web page at the moment.

Devin has a swollen ear at the moment, we are keeping an eye on it. We think it is from a bug bite and nothing serious.

We have kept pretty quiet here since nothing much is going on with our boy. His next clinic and endocrine appointment is not until September.

posted by Devin's Mom 11:06 PM