Over the past few days mom's white blood cell count has just kept rising. It went from .7 to 1.8 to 4.1 to 10.1 and today it is over 14! She has had one negative C. Diff culture and we are waiting to find out if it is still negative today. If so, she can put that whole mess behind her.. (pardon the pun)
The one number we were waiting on was the CD34. I have no idea what it is or what it means other than that we need it to be 10 to harvest. Yesterday it was 4. The word yesterday was that we would probably be able to harvest on Thursday, and hopefully heading home on Friday.
The blood results came back today and I got a phone call from Dad, shouting hallelujah and praise the Lord! The CD34 is 11 and the harvest is happening even as I type.
Harvesting stem cells is a bit like dialysis. Mom's catheter is hooked up to a noisy machine which is taking her blood and filtering all the stem cells out. This process will take 3-4 hours. By this evening, there should be some healthy, clean stem cells chillin' in the freezer.
I'll let you know when the harvest is complete!
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