At 10:46am Central time the stem cells hit my veins and all 31.77 million went in over the course of 25 minutes. I am feeling so amazing knowing that I can now say I no longer have MS!
The job is just beginning now. It will take about 6 weeks for engraftment to the cells and I have to go through a lot more IV medications today and until Discharge, which we are hoping is between March 3-10 sometime. Then I must be on antibiotics and antifungals for 6 months and antivirals for a year. But this is so worth it to now be FREE of my my MS forever!!!
​Had a relatively uneventful day but busy morning. Everything seems to start at 4:30am here… vital signs, bloodwork, early morning meds, orthostatics, shower, meeting with the transplant team at 8:45, hanging the chemo, then steroids, then rATG.
I was able to sleep on and off through a lot of the Cytoxan but did end up with some wicked nausea and a headache, with which he nurses helped me with some anyinausea meds and Tylenol.
After getting up I was so blessed to have three lovely ladies come visit me, two of whom are shortly starting the process that I am going through currently. It’s so great to have such a nice “stem family” as we call it to share our experiences. Everyone is different in their own special way, but we are all fighting for a common goal… to CURE our Multiple Sclerosis!
Tonight my last bag of meds ends at 1:15am, so I’ll be woken up by that and then the morning will begin again at 4:30! However, I am done now with the Cytoxan and will be only getting steroids and rATG. And then my Stem Cell Birthday arrives on Feb. 23rd. I am so incredibly excited!!!
So far so good! Have a great night everyone! Will try to update again tomorrow!
It’s been a pretty good day. This early morning I was woken a few times for medications, blood draw, and EKG. Got the rest of my head shaved before my shower because it was falling out in a pretty funky pattern LOL
Later Dr. Burt came for a visit and said everything looked good so far. I then went for a walk in the hallway with my cane. Three laps with 3 rests! Woo hoo! (17 laps is a mile) Then I got all my premeds before starting my chemo at 11. Took a nice nap and then did another 3 laps with 3 rests. Now I’m fighting a bit of nausea and just got meds for that. Still have IV rATG running until midnight tonight. All in all everything is going very well today!
