Day 2 post donor leukocyte infusion

January 28th came and went quite uneventfully. Derek finished up his Neupogen injections on Sunday 1/27. The last day was tough for he started experiencing some bone pain in the legs and headaches which kept him flat on his back for most of the evening. We knew Derek wasn't feeling well when he turned down dinner. On Monday morning when Derek arrived at the pheresis unit at UCLA, his pulse rate was 130. The nurses asked if he was nervous. Wade accompanied Derek while Dale and I went to the inpatient hospital side waiting for Derek to finish. Derek was stuck with 2 large bore needles and sat quitely as they filtered out his white blood cells. After 3 hours, they collected 2 bags worth each containing about 4 million per kilogram body weight CD 34+ cells ( stem cells) and 170 x 10 8 total nucleated cells ( I think these are the mature white cells). Derek came by to see Dale after the procedure with both arms bandaged with ice packs taped to his arms and a big smile on his face as usual. Derek experienced some tingling in his hands from the loss of calcium during the pheresis but a cup of milk and ice cream from Dr. Moore seemed to due the trick. Actually , Derek still complains of the tingling but I give him a cup of milk and one Tums tablet instead of ice cream. The infusion of Derek's cells into Dale was again exciting to watch. Dale experienced no untoward effects from the infusion. He also received a unit of blood and platelets. His platelets were down to 21,000 and Hgb - 7.7. Dale was discharged the next morning and is now recovering at home. So far so good. He has some grade 1 skin GVH (graft vs. host). His next blood test will be on Friday. The second bag of cells will be infused in a few months. The doctors told us this mini stem cell transplant is a long shot but it has worked in a few kids. Hopefully it will work for Dale. As soon as Dale came home, he was at his desk until 11:00 pm last night catching up on his homework and schoolwork. Auntie Millie and Uncle Eric from Hawaii also came in yesterday to visit for a few days. Dale did take a few breaks to eat and play Rock Band and Guitar Hero with his brothers. We are praying for a miracle. Thank you for your continued prayers as well.......