T-3: The Volcano and the Donor

It suddenly occurred to me yesterday to wonder where the donor lives and how the donor's bone marrow will be transported. By air? Last night I put this question to our duty nurse, whose eyebrows rose somewhat when I pointed out the potential problem. He contacted the duty doctor who then came and reassured me that "everything will be alright". Under the circumstance I'm sure that you will understand when I say that "Ha!" was the very least of my responses to that piece of patronization. So this morning I asked to talk to the transplant coordinator directly.

Conversely to what Marion said previously, I learnt that from the coordinator that the donor does not come to Nijmegen, they are operated on locally and only the bone marrow is transported. She was also able to tell me that the donor is in the USA and that, yes, transporting the bone marrow is a problem at the moment. Also, and less signficantly, because of the time difference Kay will not actually receive the transplant until Friday, so as of Wednesday the countdown will be delayed by a day.

There are in fact two issues with the potential transport problem, firstly how to get the bone marrow here at all and, secondly the length of time that it will be outside the body. If the latter is uncertain or too long then maybe the marrow will have to be frozen before transport.

Later in the day we heard from the transplant coordinator that the US organization concerned has more material that is in urgent need of transporting and is considering chartering a private flight. In any case the transplant team here will meet tomorrow to discuss the situation and decide what should be done about it. Specifically I have said that I'm against Kay being given radiotherapy before the transplant date is certain. At the moment Kay is in pretty good shape, but I expect that that will change fairly quickly after the radiotherapy.

Apart from all this, Kay has had a good day. She has been out of bed a lot, doing school work and playing on the computer. She has been fairly well behaved but remains on a very short fuse, particularly with Marion and Marion's natural motherly concern.

As I put Kay to bed another potential disaster is brewing: Mickey has gone missing. For those of you not in the know, Mickey has been Kay's constant companion since she was a baby and was with her through her first brush with leukemia. I have searched the room, without turning everything upside down, but no Mickey. I have checked with Marion, who has not seen him. The only real alternative is that he got caught up in Kay's bedding when it was changed today and is now on the way to the laundry. First thing in the morning the staff will phone the laundry. Let's hope that they have found him, otherwise there will be bloody hell to pay.

There really is never a day without some kind of new flavour of worry to experience.