I have been trying my hardest to get on here and write for everyone following Katlyn, but it seems as though a lot has been stopping me. The computer in her room isn't working so it makes it so difficult. Right now I am writing at light 5 a.m. Katlyn can't eat anything and she just happened to waked up just after her deadline to eat. Well it took me until now to get her back to sleep. I don't dare go in her room as I may wake her up, so I'm in the playroom just down the hall. The way I see it is if I'm tired...well so what, but if Katlyn is tired that's not fair plus she will only feel hungry.
So the big day is today. We did have a couple of tests left to get done before we knew for sure if we were going to go through with the harvest tomorrow. Her neautrophils were one of the,. We were so nervous. I just couldn't take it. So her blood work was done yesterday after waiting for what seemed like forever for someone to come and draw blood. Well when they did come they got what they needed in one poke. YEAH!!!! Anyway, late afternoon yesterday the doctors came to us to let us know that her neautrophils were 2200, despite being off the PEG ADA. I can't even put into words how relieved we were. That's all. She's ready.
So at 7:30 today Katlyn will go down to get her central line put in and her bone marrow harvested. Finally. She will be asleep for the entire ordeal, and we should be back in her room around 10:30isher...Haha!!! There will be three doctors doing the harvest. I guess it's a lot of work. The have to be able to drill many holes of bone marrow without removing the needle from her skin, so they will take turns. She will have it drawn out of both hips and she will have 5ml/kilo taken. She's 13 kilos, so that works out to be 65ml of bone marrow. Katlyn may be in some discomfort because of the amount of hole in her hips, but we're not even expecting that. She's a tough little girl. We are prepared, we just wouldn't be surprised if she was running around as soon as the drowsiness goes away.
So then they will take Katlyn's bone marrow to the lab, where it will be exposed to the manufactured viruses (with the ada enzyme in them). So on Sunday, Katlyn will get two rounds of Chemotherapy, six hours apart. Katlyn should not lose her hair or feel really sick. It's such a low dose that we're not expecting all those horrible symptoms. The doctor said she may get a little drowsy and upset stomach for the day, but only because of the med and the high volume of blood that will be taken. Then on Wednesday she will get the cells back and it's just a waiting game from there. I'm just glad the waiting game isn't going to be to get her treatment anymore. This time it's going to be to really get her home. YEAH!!!!!
She is doing great though. She has perfected walking so much that she now also walks backwards. She also says "thank you" consistently with us handing her stuff. She is such a doll. We really love her so much and just can't wait to get her better. It's really going to happen and Katlyn is going to do great.
Oh yeah the interview with CBC, Jenn and I can be found at this link. Please check it out. I can't because I'm on a Macintosh and it just won't work. I'll have to wait to get to the Inn, but I'm sure it's great.
http://www.cbc.ca/informationmorningns/interviews.html
