Let's Start Anew

It's a NEW year and we are going to have lots of NEW this week. Mike is giving Shelley NEUpogen shots to raise her white count and make her stem cells go out into her bloodstream for collection. Although Mike is in Medical School, this is the first time he has ever given shots to anyone, so he is learning a NEW skill. We know that the NEUpogen is working, because Shelley has been experiencing bone pain, which means that her body is accellerating it's production of NEW blood, thus NEW stem cells are being produced in her bone marrow. Shelley will have her NEW catheter put it tomorrow morning, and early Thursday morning she will start apheresis stem cell collection - a NEW experience for her! It is simple ~ she will sit and watch a NEW television show, perhaps read a NEW book, whatever, and the machine will take blood out of one tube and put it back into the other. A centrifuge in the machine separates the different components of her blood and grabs those stem cells and separates them out before returning the remainder of her blood back to her. Those stem cells will become the building blocks of Lindsey's NEW immune system. Lindsey has continued to receive her pre-transplant chemo's, and has tolerated them pretty well. She's really tired, gets up early every day and Jacob takes her to the clinic. They are out of here before 6 a.m., and they have a long day. Tomorrow is the last of the treatments. These treatments will begin to drop her blood counts in preparation for receiving Shelley's stem cells. That will happen on January 4. And that will be the beginning of Lindsey's NEW life !