Day 0

WBC- 0.2
Hgb- 9.1
Hct- 26.9
Plt- 39
ANC- 0.0

It happened. T day. The day we have been waiting for. David described it as being similar to having our babies. You wait and plan and do everything the doctor says, then you give birth. After that you have more worry and sleepless nights and pain and unknown, but at least you have gone through the labor part. I didn't sleep much last night. Come to think of it, I never slept the night before going into labor. David spent the night at the hospital with Claire, and Faith and I woke up before the sun to arrive at the hospital at 5:45. Claire has been to the OR several times, so I recognized  most of the nurses and techs. It was strange to be there with a different child. After all of the prep, Dr.H talked to us (He's very personable and chatty and Midwestern. We like him quite a bit.) and our nurse practitioner D talked to us a little more, then the anesthesiologist took Faith back. When the doors closed I was hit with a flood of emotions. I have to admit, I don't think we ever asked Faith, or any of our children, if they would donate. It was always just assumed that if they were the match of course they would. And Faith has carried it like a champion. But as they took her away, I was so touched that she would give a part of herself so her sister could live. Shed her own blood willingly. I don't take that lightly, and am grateful that the gift of life through blood was also given to me and to each one of us.

It was interesting being on both ends of this process. Often a donor is unrelated so you don't get to see both sides. It took two people extracting from both sides of Faith's hips two and a half hours to pull out just over a liter of thick, healthy marrow. Dr.H had a blister on his hand by the time he was done, but he was excited they got so much. He explained to me that (I'll try to get it right with my actor's brain) the minimum goal is to extract 200 million nucleated cells per kilogram of Claire's weight. Of that, 1-5% is stem cells. They extracted 436 million nucleated cells, with 1.1% of that being stem cells, so about 5 million, which is within the desire range. And they give us this info off the top of their heads! Several of the nurses who have been there a long time said it was the biggest bag of marrow they had ever seen. The infusion took about 4 hours, and Claire didn't have any reactions as it was going in. Our amazing nurse stayed in the room the whole time and did vitals every 15 minutes. Faith (and Ella) were able to be in Claire's room with her. On a side note, I have to give a mention to the parents in the OR waiting room. What a range of emotions sits in that space! I was telling Claire's story to my seat neighbors, and the woman said that all of that might have pushed her over the edge. Her friend then quietly said that we might think that, but the edge just keeps shifting. As I left, she gave me a hug. The kindness of strangers.

Now we wait. We wait for engraftment, when her new marrow starts producing cells on its own. Then we wait some more. In the meantime, Claire has open sores on her tongue and down to her stomach and has started pain meds to manage that. She will probably stop eating soon. She has a suction tube to manage the excessive mucus. There will probably be bone marrow pain. She will undoubtedly receive many blood and platelet transfusions. There will be pain if she develops graft versus host disease. (Surprisingly, they want a little graft versus host. It is called graft versus leukemia effect.) We pray that while she has no immunity she doesn't develop any infections, and that her liver keeps doing its job (and her kidneys and her lungs). But today we celebrate.

        Thumbs up before surgery.

      Groggy and a little weepy (common in teenage girls) after surgery.

        Pink lemonade slushy (the best flavor, FYI) brought to us by our nurse friend.

       It's no wonder Faith was a little pale after all of this came out!

     The whole team singing Happy Bone Marrow Birthday!

        Dr.H looking pretty happy

                   Every last drop.