Tony is a bottom-dweller! (Day +5)

Just kidding. But his numbers are getting down there and in particular, his neutrophils are so low the lab cannot even count them! What does this mean?? Its good. It means we are progressing according to plan. It means, now the stem cells have a chance to take root.

There are many goals in this process. Many of them are obvious. This one may not be as we are getting a lot of questions about it. The doctors need Tony's numbers to be bottom-dwellers because the stem cells, that are 5 days old in Tony, need an empty space to take root in. The transplant nurse explained it like this: Imagine the cancer Tony has as weeds in a beautiful garden. The weeds were choking out the good growth – flowers and veggies. The chemo is the weed killer. Unfortunately, it does not just kill the weeds, it kills the flowers and the veggies too. The stem cells are the seeds for a new, fertile, healthy garden. Right now, at day +5, we are waiting to let those “seeds” germinate and begin to sprout. This is gonna take about 5-8 days, maybe more.

So, Tony is a bottom-dweller, but he needs to be and, SOON, he will be a brand new garden. :)

BTW- he is good. I am just writing the blog because I am excited to try to explain it to you all!