Just wanted to let everyone know about the new addition to the family. Jacob bought Lindsey a golden retriever puppy - he surprised her with it a few weeks ago, it is the LOVE of her life - (sorry Jacob) - and it has brought her much happiness. The good news is that Jacob will care for it until they are married, since Lindsey can't be near animals during her isolation. I thought I would give everyone a timeline so that they can determine where we'll be in the Stem Cell Treatment process at any given time. Right now, Lindsey is undergoing the pre-transplant phase of her treatment. It involves 2 three-day chemo treatments at the local oncologist office here in Fayetteville. Each three-day session is considered to be one cycle of treatment and they are given 21 to 28 days apart, depending upon how well her white blood cell count recovers between cycles. After these two cycles of treatment, we wait three weeks and then the stem cell portion begins. Beginning in early January, we will begin going to Northside Hospital in Atlanta for the remainder of her treatment. They will administer a third cycle of chemotherapy, wait a few days for her blood counts to go down, and then they will retrieve her stem cells. That is accomplished using a dialysis type of procedure, and is rather simple and painless. After they have the number of cells they need (a number based on her height and weight) they will give her a HUGE blast of chemotherapy. That is when she will be sick and will go into isolation. We expect that timeframe to be late January/early February. Three days out from the big blast, they will re-insert her stem cells. That is considered to be "Day Zero", and we will be counting up from that point. The doctors consider her treatment period to be 100 days, and we will be counting up on this blog using that 100 day calendar.
