Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Paul Walker HARVEST


Paul had a morning full of tests and then another appointment with the tranplant doctor. He signed consent for the additional drug to mobilize his stem cells. They will be harvesting his stem cells with the help of this new drug starting Monday, March 24. They generally harvest enough for two stem cell transplants in case another is needed; however, there is a possibility with his past trouble that they may only be able to harvest enough for one tranplant.

A rather major change is that KU is going back to inpatient transplants for awhile. Assuming the harvest is successful, Paul will be admitted to the tranplant unit on March 31, the first day of his chemo; and will be there for approximately three weeks or until his counts go back up. Last Friday, we talked to another myeloma patient that we had met at the support group. He was to be three weeks behind Paul on the tranplant schedule; but due to Paul's delay, he is now two weeks ahead. Anyway, he was told last Friday, that he would be inpatient. That gave us time to kind of get our heads around this before meeting with the doctor today; at least it wasn't a total surprise. We both feel comfortable with this change and feel that this is another way that God is taking care of us.

Again, thank you for all of your support and prayers. We know they are helping.- Linda(Calvin's grandmother!)