Change of plan.

Scott’s transplant has been delayed until further notice. 

This process is extremely regulated and every precaution is taken to ensure that it goes smoothly and accordingly to plan. But sometimes there are bumps in the road, and we’ve come across one that will delay things a bit. 

Some characteristics in Jeffs blood, from a sample taken yesterday, caused some concern over how robust his donation of stem cells would be at the time of extraction three days from now. Scott needs at least 5 million stem cells to give the best chance of engraftment, and if there wasn’t enough after he had completed the intensive preparation therapy, he would be faced with severe health risks. The chemo/radiation transplant preparation, as I previously mentioned, is powerful, and would completely eliminate his immune system. He needs the stem cell infusion to be sufficiently robust to save his life. There is no guessing or hedging bets in the stem cell transplant game.

So, while the team investigates, the transplant is put on hold. We’re hopeful it will only be a month delay and that Jeff is still the ideal donor, but will of course keep everyone posted.

For now, Scott will need to recover from the chemo he was already given which should be similar to that of his consolidation therapy.