For real

Tomorrow is the big day. Leo and his mom are both going in to the hospital for their procedures. They both have to be there at 7:30 in the morning and they will start the stem cell collection on his mom immediately. Her procedure will take 4-5 hours. At the end of that time, they can assess if they have enough stem cells and likely will have her come in Friday morning as well to collect again. Her procedure will be outpatient, so at least she will be able to go home in between days. Leo, on the other hand, will start this long journey of recovery tomorrow. He will get to the hospital at 7:30 aswell, but that is because they have to start giving him platelets. They will basically be pumping him with platelets to get his counts up to get all his other procedures going. They will be putting in his line so they can administered medicine and draw blood and ultimately perform the transplant. Then they will start his radiation therapy twice a day for the next week or so. After that week, they will do the transplant with the cells they collected from his mom and the donated cord blood (thank you to who ever donated this wonderful gift!) and then we wait.

I am so glad that it is finally here, as I just want Leo to get better, but it's all very terrifying now that it's actually all happening. It's hard to believe that when Leo goes in tomorrow, he will not be home for about a month or so. But in the end, I know it will all be worth it because he will get his life back and will enjoy it even more.

Today is my last day physically in the office, as I will be a permanent fixture at U of C while all this is happening. For now, I have 3 weeks out of the office, but will still check in now and again. I will be updating the blog as frequently as I can so that everyone knows what's going on. As far as I know, visitors are very limited while this whole procedure is happening, but as I get more information I will let you know, as several of you have asked about this. No gifts of flowers or food will be allowed into his room, so please do not send those. All we really need right now are your prayers and good wishes.

Thanks again to all our family and friends that have helped us and been our support system through all this. Without you, everything would have been so much more difficult for us. If anything, this whole thing has brought us even closer to those we were already close with and have brought some new friends in our lives that have been a wonderful source of support.

I will post again tomorrow evening to let you know how everything went on day 1. Wish us luck!