Mako Koiwai wrote:Note to visitors ... NO REAL FLOWERS allowed on this Bacteria Sensitive ward.
Rm 4205, East side of the Helford hospital building, City of Hope, Duarte. Instead of the Main Entrance road, take the far West road. Park in the lot on your right, half way down. Anytime before 8 pm. Just need to be healthy ... and wear the provided mask ... disinfect hands.
Karen will be here into the first week of May ... at least. Karen is supposedly "cured" of her T-cell lymphoma. This long (stem cell transplant) procedure is to hopefully prevent it from reoccurring.
Thanks for the latest photo post and information. We really appreciate staying informed as to how Karen is progressing. Can't believe it was well before Thanksgiving when all this started.
Keep fighting Karen. We need you back behind the wheel
And as for you Mako, you are truly a humble servant.
Here's a time lapse video of Karen's stem cell transplant. A month ago they spent four days harvesting 4.24 million stem cell from her blood. Last week, after 7 days of additional chemo, they re-injected them into her juggler vein. Note the six red bags being drained. They were kept frozen in liquid nitrogen and defrosted in a warm bath in front of her room door. At the moment she has no white blood cells ... but by the end of this week they will be coming back and she will start feeling better. btw. she is already cured of T-cell lymphoma. This procedure is to try and guarantee that it will not come back ... normally a high probability with this type of lymphoma.
Just by chance, as they were wrapping up the procedure, a care package arrived ... with a new scarf and some little light up characters ...