Tatiana

Tati is now recovering from her second induction of chemotherapy.. she has AML (Acute Myeloid Lukemia). she had a platelet and red blood cell transfusion yesterday.. her platelets were down to 1,000 (which is practically the lowest it should ever get) and her red blood cell count was about 8, which is pretty anemic.. normal platelet count should be over 200,000 and red blood cell count should be around 15. she is doing better now, we are waiting for Brant to get HLA typing tomorrow.. (Human Leukocyte Antigen, which shows the DNA typing to find if he is a match to donate bone marrow). They have already found a pretty close match for Tati from cord blood, but we are testing Brant just in case, I have been tested, but I am only about 50% match and they need a higher percentage for the bone marrow transplant to take effect. The better match they have, the less chance of graft vs host disease, where your body rejects the transplant/new bone marrow. the transplant will be done by a cord blood donation which uses the stem cells within the donated cord blood and it is (the new blood cells) infused into her central line. she now has a broviac central line (a small tube that goes into her vein to her heart) it's an easy access for transfusions, chemo, other drugs, drawing blood for blood counts, etc. We are tentatively waiting to go to Tuscon in about 2 weeks, hoping they are ready for us and that her counts go back up.. Tati is very neutropenic right now, her ANC (absolute neutrofil count) is at zero right now, and it should be over 1,000.. which means she doesn't have an immune system. if your ANC is 500 or less, you are neutropenic. Tatiana's chance of doing well with the bone marrow transplant is about 50% (survival rate). We believe she is strong, she did very well with this last induction and she is eating and gaining weight!