Day 0....Transplant

The post you have all been waiting for. The transplant went well. No throwing up during and only once after, no fevers, no breathing problems. Her blood pressure did go up a bit after (154 over 105 for the nurses) but came down after some time. She didn't really like the actual transplant because the preservative they use to store the cells comes out of your body through your lungs and it makes your mouth taste bad (the doc said an older patient described it as a peice of garlic hanging in the back of the throat. not pleasant)
The whole day started at a quarter to 8 with vitals and such. It seemed like constant action till the actual transplant at 11:30. Lots of testing equipment, calculating meds, getting pre-medications, have the EKG leads put on, trying to make her keep the oxygen monitor on her finger, blood pressures every 15 min and so on. Then at 11:30 everyone came in and the person from the blood bank arrived with the cells. They are still frozen and defrosted in the room. Here is a picture of Alivia all hooked up and ready to go.


And here is a picture of the cells being defrosted. Yea that is all it is. Crazy.


Then Dr. Ungar got the cells ready and told Dr. Martin (the resident who actually pushed the cells in...this was his first transplant) what to do. They they hooked the tube of cells onto one of her lines and pushed them in over 10 min. Here are two pictures.


She started to cry pretty soon after it started because of the taste in her mouth but quickly got used to it and just sat and watched Elmo in Grouchland the rest of the time (the portable DVD player was a life saver..thanks Mike and Joanne)


Here is Livi with Karli giving the thumbs up. Karli was our very first nurse when we came in almost a year ago and it was so cool that she did our transplant too.


The rest of the day Alivia was a bit out of sorts and wanted me to be with her at all times. I got out of the room to go to eat around 3 when she finally took a nap. Then I got a nap too. She slept for close to 4 hours. I think the day was just a bit overwhelming and stressful for her. I know it was for me. I'm so thankful that she had no adverse side affects during the transplant. That is not the norm and everyone keeps telling us how good she is doing. We are praying that continues. As our transplant doc says "we want boring". Being bored means nothing is bad is happening. So bored is good...

Thanks for cards or pictures from the following people.
the Lititz caregroup...your costumes where hilarious. Oh wait...those aren't costumes. (just kidding)
Aunt Kathy for the sweet card (Livi loves the fruit with bugs in it. She wants to scare everyone with it. and today she played with all the hats you made. Thanks)
The Eckman family.
IASD Admin office....you are setting the bar high for the costume competition. These are the folks to beat right now. Alivia kept going over to it and pointing to the funny noses. Deb...she was pretty excited that you were doing thumbs up. It took my dad a while to figure out who the clown was (good work!!). Dad liked what you did with your hair Don...didn't know he had been gone long enough for it to grow like that.

Pray that it continues to be "boring".