Last Chemo + DLI Collection

Yesterday was one of the longest days in recent memory. We had to be at the hospital for Daniel's apheresis (lymphocyte collection) at 7:30 a.m. With Krispy Kreme donuts in hand, we arrived and Daniel was "hooked up" without incident. We were surprised at the very large bore metal needle that stayed in his left arm during the entire procedure to take the blood out, making it so he couldn't move the arm for four hours. The return side had a regular IV, which was plastic, so Daniel could move that arm and hand. He actually seemed to enjoy himself watching old movies (Cheech and Chong's "Up in Smoke" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off") while Adrienne and I hung out keeping him company. We got a call last night that they collected nearly 3x as many cells as needed so we are pretty happy. We are hoping that there are enough cells available to do another clinical trial using cytokine-induced killer cells in a few months.

After the apheresis, we came home for a few hours and ate lunch, and Adrienne went to work for a couple of hours. Then we were back to the hospital for an MRI of Adrienne's hips to assess her avascular necrosis, followed by chemo. I had understood that they would do the MRI on her shoulders and knees too, but they said that would take several hours and would have to be done during separate visits. No results on the MRI yet.

Next, Adrienne got her chemo uneventfully. It was the shortest chemo yet. She felt pretty crummy last night and isn't feeling well this morning either. Hopefully she'll feel better by dinner time like she did last time. She's very happy to be done with this chemo, at least.

Adrienne will begin receiving Daniel's lymphocytes next Tuesday, and every three to four weeks after that, assuming she doesn't develop GVHD. She will get at least one treatment while at Claremont McKenna, but we haven't worked out those details yet. She'll either have to fly home for a day or they will need to ship the cells to City of Hope. We would prefer the latter.