On our way out
08 Feb 2007 Leave a Comment
in Fertility, Fertility Video, Operation
Just got confirmation that of Joy being able to lave the hospital.
She is feeling tired, but the pain is a lot better. She can feel the incision quite a bit today, and is glad to be eating!
We got all cleaned up and the room ready to for dispatch.
Dr. Silber came by today and checked in with Joy. He said some very good news about the healing process. He said that now with 3 days post of and
Joy doing as well as she is, that “dangerous part” is done. I got the feeling that its all good from here for the healing process.
He is such a great doc, and i am very happy to have met him, not only for the amazing gift he has brought our family, but also because he is great human being, a pleasure to interact with, and a very funny guy.
I got the teaser video from the FOX channel up now too, enjoy.
Report video with some added coments
08 Feb 2007 Leave a Comment
in Fertility, Fertility Video, Operation
We are very thankful to have Joy and Maeapple’s story in the media, the more people hear about this procedure, the more women that can benefit from the work. I have uploaded the video from KMOV and added some comments.
Out of the hospital later today
08 Feb 2007 Leave a Comment
Dr. Derosa (2nd surgeon) came by just now.
Looked at the incision, checked her out and said all looked really good. Since Joy is eating solid foods, the IV will come out soon, and we get to leave the hospital today. He also let us know the time frame for getting back to normal activity. No driving for 2 weeks, no heavy lifting for 4-6, no exercise for 6, minimal stair use for 4 weeks. Essentially take it very easy for the next 4, and then light load for another 2. At the 6 week mark, Joy can resume normal everything. Joy is still very tired, and in a some pain, and this morning she has been more active and moving around, i am really glad to see her healing progress steadily and upwards. With the help of Dr. Karen Lawandowski, from the bay area we got connected with a local chiropractor that came last night to see Joy and work on her, so awesome to be able to make connections like that. Joy’s dad and sister Becky head home to Tennessee today, they are going to stop by in a little while and then they are off. It has been really good to have then here this entire time.
Full day
07 Feb 2007 1 Comment
The day started with getting up early to pick Maeapple from the hotel and bring her to the hospital for a 7.45 interview with the local FOX affiliate, they did that one, and then did one with the local CBS affiliate. The CBS one aired tonight and you can watch it here.
We then had some time to talk to Dr. Silber and had some great news. When they removed the ovary from Maeapple, they also collected 5 eggs, and have now matured them, and they are safely frozen as a backup measure in case we need that. This means that we have two backups in case the transplant fails, one: there is some ovarian cortex frozen, and two: there are 5 eggs frozen. Dr. Silber also checked Joy’s progress and was happy by all the improvements. With his direction Joy moved to solid foods by the end of the day!!! woohoo!!
I drove Maeapple to the airport a little before noon, and she went back home. Joy continues to do better and better by the hour, we walked around ward some more today, and it all points to Joy being release tomorrow. Dr. Silber says that tomorrow will be an even better day for Joy, it sounds like the healing speeds up from here. All is looking great for us going home on Saturday.
Joy got birthday gift from the staff at the hospital and family.
It sure feels like a full day, there so much more i want to write about right now, and i am exhausted, i will write more tomorrow.
All in a days time
05 Feb 2007 2 Comments
in Fertility
Meapple was released from the hospital earlier this afternoon. Joy will have to stay a while longer since her procedure used a larger incision. I am happy that everyone is doing well and showing great signs of healing.
I can’t say enough about how brave these two women are, its completely awesome to witness. i watched today as they put in Maeapple’s IV line (she hates needles), and it was hurting, and she just trucked right no, same thing with Joy. I witnessed Joy being brought out of recovery on the OR bed, still groggy from the anesthesia, clearly nauseated, and she had her wits about her letting the nurses know about her vitals.
There is nothing that has gripped me more than to see her in so much pain at one point, and know that there is little i can do to make it better, its a bizarre feeling.
Maeapple’s incisions (4 of them) are healing well, with a little draining. Joy’s larger incision is healing great with no draining.
Can’t ever get used to the nurses checking up on her every hour on the hour, makes it hard for her to get sound sleep.
sleeep…… time for me to get some.
a-ok
05 Feb 2007 4 Comments
in Fertility, General, Operation
Joy was brought out of surgery about 1/2 hour ago.
Dr. Silber describes the surgery as going perfect. All the blood flow is working as expected.
Joy is doing well, but she is very groggy and nauseous. They have her on an iv drip and anti nausea medication.
Tonight i will post some video from the last few days.
i am so happy that both Maeapple and Joy have gone through the procedures and are in good health afterwards.
**sigh** now i can breath easier!
All tests done
02 Feb 2007 Leave a Comment
All the tests that had been requested are now complete, and the results have made their way to the Dr. Silber’s office. This sure feels good to have all the ducks in a row and taken care of. Today friday Joy goes to pick up Maeapple from VAFB and they come back tomorrow. In a matter of few dozen hours we will be getting ready to board a plane to take us to St. Louis. This is so very exciting!
Got a chance to speak to Dr. Silber last night, and he is also very excited and wanted to check in with us to make sure that everything was going well.
I also posted some book recommendations on the side bar –>
Why an ovary transplant?
30 Jan 2007 Leave a Comment
in Fertility
One of the most asked question people have once i share with them what we are doing is “Why an ovary transplant?”
Its a great question! There are other ways to get pregnant, and other ways to bring a child into our lives. What is also true about Joy is that since the cancer treatment shut down her ovaries, she no longer produces hormones as her body did before, which means she is in an menopausal state. This has lots of ratifications across her daily life, and our lives together. Everything from bone loss, to her not feeling like herself, and many many other things. The current treatment for her state is hormone replacement therapy (HRT), taking a daily dosage of hormones, same pills as the “pill” i think. This does help lots, but will never match her own body producing exactly what she needs. There have been recent studies that suggest HRT leads to a higher incident of cancer in women. All in all, it would be a good thing to let her body produce what it knows best. Getting pregnant, we could go down the in vitro fertilization (IVF) route, which has come a long way in the last 20 years, yet success rates are still lower than natural conception. Each IVF “round’ can cost $10,000 or so, it could take one round, or many for one child, and if we wanted to have more kids, then we would need to do another round. There is also convincing naturally, something we both want to do.
When we looked at all the scenarios, doing the transplant is the best choice. It will bring her body back to producing all it needs all on its own, we will conceive naturally, and we can have numerous children without having to go and redo any treatment. It was still a hard decision, i had heard rumors of this procedure before we met Dr. Silber, and at first i didn’t like the fact that she would go “under the knife”. The more we talked, and really thought about it though, it was clear, the transplant is what we want.
i was just thinking about this a lot today, and wanted to write my experience.
B cell cross match: check
19 Jan 2007 Leave a Comment
in Fertility
The tests that we needed to coordinate last Wednesday got all done correctly.
I just spoke with the Barnes Jewish Hospital HLA lab in St. Louis and they received all the samples safe and sound. This is great! now we should have results next week, though we know it will be a match.
Tests please
16 Jan 2007 Leave a Comment
in Fertility
Since we visited Dr. Silber in December a slew of tests where ordered primarily for Joy and Maeapple but also for me. So far so good. I had my semen sample test done a couple of weeks ago, and the results came out normal. What i didn’t anticipate about this test was how much i would end up feeling around doing this test. I alway thought that my results would be fine, though still in the back of my mind the questions lingered “what if it does not come out ok?” no one really tells you about that, i guess you are suppose to expect it.
For the past couple of weeks we have also been trying to set up a T & B cell cross match test. This is to determine if Joy and Maeapple are suitable matches i believe. Well turns out that the VA does not perform this test, and many labs here in the bay area don’t perform this test. So we have to send out the sample to a lab in St. Louis. It has been a bit of work to coordinate it all, since both blood sample have to arrive in St. Louis at the same time within 24 hours after the blood has been drawn.
It looks like it will happen tomorrow, Joy and Maeapple will have their blood drawn at separate locations in California and have the samples FedEx to St. Louis.
The Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis HLA lab will be doing the tests for us.
We are not worried about the test results since we already know that they are a match, since Maeapple has already donated bone marrow to Joy. They just require a new test for each procedure.
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