It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since Isabella received her stem cell transplant. (You can review the blog post that we posted here: http://isabella.icatar.com/2009/05/stem-cell-transplants.html). Those days were extremely difficult as she had just received her last and strongest doses of chemotherapy and her immune system was pretty much obliterated. We would be placed in an isolation room and all visitors would have to wear masks and gloves so that she wouldn’t get sick. Isabella was so sick during those days that she had a morphine drip attached to her, and she would have to press a button to get some relief.
But fortunately, Isabella recovered extremely fast. In fact, the nurses and doctors said that Isabella was the fastest ever to recover. We could have been in isolation in the pediatric unit for up to 2 months, but we ended up being home in less than 2 weeks!
The clinical trial that Isabella was part of (HeadStart) measures survivorship from the date of the stem cell transplant. We’re hoping that we will be able to celebrate many more of these anniversaries for years to come.
