Bone Marrow Transplant No 3.

Well Since last post we have had a crazy couple of months.
The port insertion went in and has been a true blessing for delivery of intragam each month. Harrison has been fairly well through all of this .

We moved! to a cute house on an acre. and then had amazing storms and lived with no power for 5 days.
During this stormy period I received a call advising that Harrison's enzyme count was dropping.

Sadly I knew before the words were said that Harrison would need another bone marrow transplant, as technically this is his first graft failing. So rather than wait for it to fail completely and him become very unwell, and those dastardly toxic metabolites to creep up in number and do damage again, we agreed to transplant Harrison in the beginning of our Australian summer.

What seemed like the slowest couple of weeks passed with no more news, yet everyone around us as anxious as we were to meet the new team of doctors who would do this process. Then the call came and within a week we met our new Doctor, Melisssa Gabriel. Along with the original clinical nurse consultant we had Kay and a new ( well we had met her before but only briefly ) Immunologist, Melanie Wong.

We talked about the dangerousness of giving Harrison chemo, and the two types he will be given. Thankfully I don't recall the names or I would be playing Dr Google probably to our detriment. But we also talked about Ella being Harrison's donor again. Ella was asked as soon as I had the call to consider her options for being a donor, and said yes. She knows that despite her great cells it is Harrison's body that is not working well, and that should anything go badly it would. never be her fault.

Ella then went down a week later for independant review, and passed this with flying colours. We filled out a rheem of paper work, and I had to laugh and nearly cried at the same time, when the BMT doctor told Ella it was very very rare of her to tick "have you been a bone marrow donor before?" questions box with a  yes.

We then got a call to give us a date ( after another couple of week wait ) . Last week of September. It is coming along much faster than we would all like.
The reality of this means we have to pack up and store the house contents and give up our rental home. I cannot afford the costs of renting, kids and school, extra hospital costs of food, etc and the extra treats that the kids will need to keep them sane . Its going to be very hard. But a house can always be found again. It puts me under a lot less financial pressure to manage.

Chemo will put Harrison under immense strain. He is having reduced cycle chemo but for him it would be like a fully intensive round. Ada Scid kids are particularly sensitive to chemo it seems. He will end up with mucositis ( infections and sores in the mucous lining of mouth throat etc.) will probably have feeds done via nasal gastric tube, will have red blood cell and platelet transfusions to keep him going until the new bone marrow cells take hold.

As with last time Ella will have her harvest same day as Harrison has his transplant. As with last time my mum steps into my role to care for Marlie, Sterling and Ella while I go into hospital with Harrison - an expected 3 month stay. I will now try to update more and add photos as we go about this process. Second transplants for this are very uncommon. We hope to help at least show that its a process that works ok.