Monday was a busy day! First day of school for our Savvy girl, 2 rounds of radiation for Blakely with Dad, and central line placement and stem cell retrieval for Mom! 

Everything on Monday went good! Blakely had a double round trip ride in an ambulance to both radiology appointments since it’s at another hospital. She gets pretty irritable with anesthesia so after the second sedation she was pretty irritated and just plain tired! While B was getting that done with Dad, I had my central line placed while awake. It was NOT a good time, but we got it done haha. Then I watched a few movies and chatted with family while I laid in bed for 5 hours during the cell retrieval. All went well and we actually ended up with double the needed amount for Blakely so we had plenty of extra to freeze if needed in the future for boosts. And Savvy had a very good first day of school with grandma and grandpa flying in from Utah the night before to surprise her and drop her off for her big day. 

After I was finished with my stem cell donation for Blakely, I was able to return back to the hospital with Blakely as she was getting back from radiation. It was a long busy day. As I’m getting ready for bed I noticed the central line in my neck had began to leak and the dressing was full of the saline flush. So my line had a leak.. which isn’t good because that puts you at risk for infection. So at 11:30pm Austen and I headed back to the Mayo Clinic ER to have my central line taken out. We laughed about the fact this was a nice little date for us for the first time a few months haha. After the ER wait, getting my line pulled out, and a quick stop for some middle of the night burritos we got back to Blakely at the hospital at 3am 😮‍💨 

Thankfully Blakely slept in and the nurse woke us up that my cells were on their way to be infused into Blakely at 10:30am. Austen and his Dad were able to give Blakely and the cells a quick heartfelt blessing before the infusion started. The infusion went great and she received just what the doctor ordered with some to spare! 🧡

About 2 hours after the infusion she began to spike a fever. Fever in neutropenic kids calls for infection protocol and she had to have her blood drawn to check for any infections. Once the fever began, she really started to feel yucky after that.. high heart rate, respirations, nausea, and vomiting. She battled a really high fever all night despite us using meds.

Today she’s still fevering but it’s not quite as high of a fever as yesterday and vitals have lowered a bit. She’s sleeping and resting a lot today since last night was so rough. We are really hoping this is just a reaction to the cells and not anything infection or virus related. Please pray for engraftment and for her to be infection free! Brave little Blakely 🧡