Transplant has Started!

After thinking everything was going to be put on hold for awhile, we have now moved ahead and started conditioning, which basically means we have started transplant. I woke up around 4am to the nurse telling me that we were going to go ahead with the transplant and she was getting ready to give her the first chemo. Luckily I was awake enough to stop her and ask about the anti seizure med that she is suppose to have first. The nurse didn't know about it and went to check with the Dr and came back with the anti seizure med and then started chemo about an hour later. The anti seizure med is to help prevent her from having a seizure, obviously, but the reason is because this particular chemo can cause seizures. So we are now into day 1 of conditioning. The problem is that her blood culture came back positive for a bacteria. We got this news around 9am this morning. So now they are debating whether to continue with transplant or stop and wait for her to clear this infection. They have to make the decision soon because later today is the "point of no return". Once she starts her second chemo this afternoon we have to move forward, there is no going back after that one. So the Dr's are all meeting and discussing right now. I'll let you know how it goes.
They decided to start the transplant because her fever had gone away and she was not having any symptoms so they felt like it was safe to proceed, I wish they would have waited just a little longer though for the culture results. But I know we're on a tight schedule and it is important to try to stay on it if we can. We don't want to lose the donor.
I expect there will be frequent updates over the next couple weeks, sometimes even a couple in a day like today. I expect to keep this as a running journal of what is going on for everyone to keep up with. So check back on other posts if you think you might have missed something.
Avarie has been very anxious and upset since we got here. She is scared to be in a new place with new faces. She has asked to go home or back to Emanuel several times. We have tried to just reassure her that everything will be alright and her response to us is "Stop talking to me!" Sounds just like her, huh!
The chemo, Busulfan that we started this morning has already upset her tummy and she's already thrown up twice. They are going to start her on TPN tomorrow because we don't expect the upset tummy to get any better, we expect her to get worse. I am glad that they are on top of that though. I want to make sure she is getting her nutrition, we've done the wait and see how she feels tomorrow or trying to push her g-tube feeds, which makes her just throw up more. They obviously have done this before.
I'll update again when I have something more.