Transplant Day

Just a quick update to let everyone know Ellie’s Bone Marrow Transplant went ahead today as planned. Everything went well, with no major immediate reactions. As I’ve said before, stem cell transplant theory is fascinating. Our anxiety has been building over the last few weeks and we were all feeling a little nervous about today. It’s crazy to believe this little 37ml bag could be what saves Ellie’s life.
 
Ellie did fantastically and seemed unphased by the transplant. She’s been very sick for the last week or so with constant nausea and vomiting. She doesn’t have much energy so was just resting and watching a movie during the momentous occasion. She hasn’t been talking and barely communicating for the last week but was able to nod/shake her head when asked if she was in pain and if she understood what was happening. I could tell that she was paying attention and was aware of everything happening around her.
 
While Ellie has largely ‘shut down’ hilariously, she sometimes randomly perks up for 30 seconds to make a sharp comment (usually directed at a nurse or us) which catches everyone off guard. During the transplant infusion, she commented that it ‘tasted like old yoghurt’. The transplant team found this interesting as a common reaction is an awful taste which induces vomiting, but they were impressed with the description of ‘old yoghurt’. The old yoghurt smell was quite potent when Ellie exhaled, and it lingers around the room for some time.
 
It will now take a couple of weeks for the fresh stem cells to fully bed-down in the long bones and for engraftment to occur. Over the next 2 weeks, we will hopefully see the chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting start to subside. Chemo has now done its job and Ellie’s bone marrow has been destroyed. She won’t have any more chemo, hopefully ever. While the nausea should subside, we’re now entering mucositis territory which has already commenced. This will likely result in extremely painful mouth sores and gut pain for which the team are planning to put her straight on constant fentanyl (morphine). Hopefully, from D+14 we will start to see signs of engraftment which, will include a degree of GvHD, as I’ve explained in previous posts.
 
The next few weeks are going to be difficult for Ellie. We all have strong hopes for quick engraftment without major complications.
 
Thank you to everyone for the continued love and support. Please keep Ellie in your thoughts.
 
PC