Bring it.

We celebrated Valentine’s Day with a hot date at the hospital clinic and an appointment with Dr. K. We haven’t seen her since Scott was initially admitted, as she hasn’t been assigned to the C4 ward (where Scott receives treatment). During re-induction Scott saw a few of the other hemotologists when they were on the schedule, so it was nice to get some face time with ‘his’ Doctor. As you can imagine consistency during this all is ideal.

The nerves leading up to these visits tend to take over our hearts and minds, and waiting in that room for the doctor to come in we were just trying to focus on ‘Wordscapes’ rather than the two possible outcomes of this appointment. We’ve experienced both – the non-remission post chemo check up, and the remission check-up. We’ll take the latter, thanks.

We learned that Scott’s blood counts have recovered beautifully – great news! Love hearing that 🙂 His neuts, platelets and hemoglobin have all increased well, and there weren’t any blasts in the blood. They would need a marrow biopsy to confirm remission and obtain cytogenetic information pertinent for transplant. We will know the details next week.

I can watch pimple popping and ingrown toenail extraction YouTube videos – no problem. But thinking about this biopsy procedure makes me squirm. I have said it before, but I am just so impressed with how Scott gets through these making jokes and small talk with everyone in the room, while a needle is inserted into his hip bone and a piece of his marrow is extracted.

We also learned (and this was a surprise) that he will move forward to Transplant as early as the first week of March, with Day Zero scheduled for March 6! Where Scott did Consolidation Chemo between remission and transplant in 2016, this time they are just moving him right into transplant bypassing that month delay. So we were thinking April-ish for transplant, and though it sounds like – what’s the big deal, a month right? – it’s more about frame of mind. We were thinking that this was going to be a check-in to see about remission status and maybe a biopsy. But quickly the transplant coordinator came into the room for an introduction, and we were making appointments for the next two weeks for the family meeting and all his pre-transplant testing (soo many tests). Wowza. Also confirmed was that the relapsed cancer came from Scott’s residual cells, not the transplanted cells from Jeff (Scott’s brother). This means that Jeff can be his donor again as a different donor with the same compatibility (a perfect match) is not available through the database.

The appointments, the meetings, the “What to Know About Your Transplant’ books I am handed – it all comes back (grudgingly) quickly. When Dr. K told us about the plan to go to transplant, we felt that she kind of looked at us with an “I’m sorry to tell you this…..” face. But honestly, as scary/intimidating as transplant is, we know it is going to be the thing that saves Scott’s life. So Scott told her to “bring it on – give me your worst – cure me“.

It feels reassuring that the team is assuming remission and planning accordingly. That gives us hope that confirmation of remission will come next week.

Fun fact: Family Day weekend was when we found out Scott was in remission in 2016!