Today marks seven years since Chelsie had her bone marrow transplant. To say we have been blessed, doesn't seem like enough. Too many of the kids who were battling cancer at the same time have passed or relapsed and are still fighting their battles. I don't think we could ever put into words what we feel.
During her battle with cancer, it seemed our goal was to get her to the transplant portion of her treatment. This was a "new beginning" as we would hear over and over from her transplant team. To put a stem cell transplant in easy terms, stem cells were harvested from her body when she was six months old. They were then sent to L.A. to be tested to make sure they were cancer free. The harvest, as it is called, was extremely painful for her. She was sedated and put in ICU with a catheter in her leg. She was hooked up to a machine that separated the part of blood (plasma, platelets, and stem cells). She was closely monitored and blood was pumped back into her, almost as fast as it was coming out of her. After the stem cells were deemed cancer free, they were taken to the James Cancer Center at the Ohio State University and frozen for later use. We were blessed to have gotten 3 times the amount that was needed for her transplant.
On February 11, 2005, she was admitted for a week of harsh chemotherapy to kill every cancer cell that remained in her body. They name this day day -8. The chemotherapy was administered 24 hours a day, and was the harshest that she had undergone in her 6 months of prior treatments. She was given baths every two hours to prevent her skin from burning. At about day -3, she had the "BMT tan", a reddish appearance that many patients experience from the treatment. Then on day 0, she was infused with her own stem cells. She actually slept through the infusion which lasted a very short amount of time, and was held in a large syringe. My baby had just begun the road to a new life. One that was cancer free. The next few days she was very ill. Temperatures spiked at 103, mouth sores and other issues caused her to be placed on a morphine pump for the next several weeks. She would no longer eat or drink and had to be placed on TPN for the next 4 months. I remember thinking this would never end. I hated seeing her in pain. But, knowing that she needed this in order to save her life, I had to give it all to God. He would see us through this.
When she was in transplant, we were in isolation for six weeks. A very short list of pre-approved visitors and doctors would be our only visitors. A very lonely time for all of us. Mark, my mom and I would take shifts. Mark had to return to work, so mom and I would take 24 hours shifts. During this time, you have many hours to think and pray. One thought that kept coming to my mind over and over again was blood saved Chelsie's earthly body but Jesus' blood saves our eternal body.
Eph. 1:7-8 "In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of Gods grace that he lavished upon us with all wisdom and understanding."
Life led us on a path that we were not ready to take. Funny how life does that. Not that there is ever a perfect time for a cancer diagnosis, but this certainly was not in our plans. But thankfully we had faith and a promise of tomorrow.
Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is being SURE of what we hope for and certain of what we do not SEE!"
God Bless!
Janelle
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