After the final day of high dose chemo there was one further 24 hours of hyper hydration alone (to flush the chemo from her body) then ‘day zero’ had arrived, when Romy’s stem cells would be given back to her. Her stem cells were wheeled into her room, inside of a R2D2 style container. The cells were kept at extremely cold temperatures during storage and transport (< -150°C). When ready the specially qualified nurse removed the cells from the container using what looked like oven gloves, they were then placed in a container filled with warm water to thaw out the frozen cells. Once thawed the bag of cells were hung above Romy and the reinfusion began. Unlike all the other drugs, blood, and chemo, these were not infused using a pump- so as to not damage the precious cells they were simply hung and gravity was allowed to take effect. During the reinfusion we began to notice a strong smell of sweetcorn (the preservative added to the cells) and this smell would last for a few days as it would continue being secreted from Romy’s pores. Due to Romy’s body weight she wasn’t allowed to have all of the stem cells re-infused in one go, so a smaller remaining amount was completed on the following day. We had to go through three separate attempts to obtain the stem cells in the first place, including two operations, so it was a bit of an anti-climax when the reinfusion took only 10-15mins. Now we wait for the stem cells to begin engraftment and also to see what side effects Romy experiences from the recent high dose chemo.
Romy’s period of protective isolation commenced on “day zero”. This meant Zephyr could no longer go into Romy’s room and although she got used to waiting on the chairs in the corridor while we quickly swapped with each other in the corridor, no amount of video calls could make up for seeing and playing together. Zephyr made paintings to send to Romy and never made a fuss to see her in person even though she clearly missed her.
Helen & Tom
