Tony and I went down to Huntsman today for another round of tests and meeting team members. He started with a regular blood draw, and then we met with his Hematologist. They have him scheduled to do his first maintenance chemo starting this Friday. He will be in the hospital for 3 days, and then will be able to come home. But will need to come back down every other day for blood draws and transfusions as needed.
After meeting with his Hematologist, we met with the geneticist. While looking at the genes in his blood they found a possible concerning gene that could indicate that he is predispositioned to have Leukemia. So she scheduled a skin biopsy to check the specific genetics without involving his leukemic contaminated blood. If the results come back that he has this specific gene, they will have to test his brothers for it too. If they have that gene, then they are no longer viable bone marrow donor options.
The skin biopsy was certainly less painful than his bone marrow biopsies. I snapped this picture right before they started. It was a pretty easy process, and he didn't feel much of anything besides when they put the lidocaine at the incision spot. They took the biopsy from his upper arm. It should take about 4 weeks before we'll have the results of the biopsy. They actually take the skin and grow it in a lab for 1-2 weeks, then send it off to test for 150 or so different genes.
No comments:
Post a Comment