Day + 20

The past few days have been a bit of a mental and emotional challenge.
Brett's cell roller-coaster has come to an abrupt end with no cells being present at all.

He had a good count Monday , white cells 0.8 & neutrophil 0.4 but since then nothing.

The hospital have sent that blood sample off to another hospital for an emergency test to see if the cells are female or male.
It is convenient that Brett had a female donor as it makes it very easy to see what's present under the microscope.

The doctors started talking about Plan B yesterday and my heart sank.
Plan B is obviously only actioned when plan A has failed.
Plan A being the transplant.

I couldn't believe they were really saying the transplant has failed already?
Apparently yes.

After a long chat (moan) to a doctor today I think I understand it all a little more.
Brett's blood results have been a little too erratic..
The specialist blood test will determine if the transplant is working. 
If they report seeing female cells there will be nothing to worry about and it'll be just a waiting game for the cells to establish fully.
If they see Brett's cells, it will indicate the transplant has failed and they will want to put something else in place quickly.

Kev and I had our donor blood tests today, we will be used if Brett needs rescuing.
I didn't ask what that fully means in the long term because you get the idea from the name rescuing.

They have also started looking for an umbilical cord.
These are another form of stem cell transplant and are quite useful for the doctors as they are literally off the shelf.

A transplant is deemed a failure at day +42 unless there are factors which indicate failure earlier.

The doctor assured me that they didn't think Brett's transplant had failed yet but were veering on the side of caution because of Christmas and New year, they need to get organised early before shut down.

Although the hospital functions with a skeleton team, non urgent diagnostic tests and procedures are put aside till after the holidays, labs close and non contact staff have time off.
That office worker who is given the week off, is the very person that can analyse the database of the tissue types of cords in stock.

I am really starting to hate Christmas this year.

So we have been put through the worry and HUGE stress listening to plan pigging B because of the happy holidays ?!?

Baa frickin humbug