The second of the cord-blood stem cells was transfused at 6:00 p.m. today. It was a very large unit. Yay!
Sometimes I realize I don't explain myself or this process well. So I will give it another shot. If you have questions or need me to clarify something, feel free to ask :-)
So in transplanting with cord-blood stem cells (umbilical cord stem-cells). An average adult needs to have two different cord-blood units to obtain the amount of stem cells necessary to increase the odds of achieving a long term remission or cure (they actually base the amount of needed stem cells on the hosts size or per kilogram of body weight). Recent research shows having a large stem cell unit (or 2 cord-blood stem cell units) results in better engraftment, and increased remission rates. This is why children receiving cord-blood transplants only need one unit, they are smaller.
Jeremie's cord-blood stem cells had to be matched to each other and then to Jeremie as well. Thank you to amazing parents that donated their cord-blood, my husbands life is being saved. It is amazing that this technology exists, and we are able to benefit from it.
By the way I asked today about parents donating their umbilical cord blood if they choose. The cute lady from the U of U said they actually had a program that they were asking mothers during delivery if they would consider donating their umbilical cord blood (it is just thrown away, usually). They were sending the units to a California cord-blood bank. It lost funding, and so did they. Darn it.
BUT mom's out there who want to donate can plan to have kits mailed to them before the birth of their baby and donate the cord-blood themselves. Here is more information
http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Donate_Cord_Blood_Share_Life/index.html
Alrighty...Love to all! Jeremie wants to go on a walk NOW!!
Cori
Off topic I know but do you have to pay for the kit and storage if you're donating it? I know when we had Ava we seriously looked into it but it was expensive and yearly storage fees added in we didn't have the money at the time...however, I know you can't really put a price on being able to save a life, or your childs life if they would end up needing it.
ReplyDeleteI'm so happy for you that today was an exciting day! Thanks for all of your updates!
Nope no price to donate your cord-blood. If you were storing it for personal use, yes there is a fee. Some parents start out storing it for personal use, then later on decide to donate it to a donation center.
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