We are back home in California after a few days of pre-testing. I’m a little tired but other that that everything went well. Also thank you to my mom for taking such good care of the kiddos while we were away!
They took a lot of blood so it seems they are being very thorough and checking for any possible thing that could interfere with the safety of the procedure. Northwestern is a well oil machine. The waits were not too long and i think people in Chicago are very very nice. I wasn’t a huge a fan of the pulmonary test. I had to repeat it multiple times because I just couldn’t get the air out. I was worried it may disqualify me but it turns out small people expel their air a little more quickly and my lungs are actually in great shape. I figured since I run and never have breathing problems this was the case but you just never know.
We met with Dr. Balobalov, the neurologist that works with Dr. Burt for the transplant. I liked him. He was straight-forward with me and to the point. I have found a lot of times the doctors don’t directly answer hard questions and I appreciate honest answers. He did say after looking at my MRI’s he felt it was risky to wait until end of Feb and if I was still negative for the JC Virus (I explained this in an earlier post) he would agree to shorten the Tysabri washout period as long as Dr. Burt was in agreement. The issue is you can get a new lesion in the spine especially while waiting resulting in permanent mobility issues among other things that lets just say I prefer not to battle with on top of my current symptoms. So as long as that test is negative it looks like this is looking like a January start date. Yikes.
Next month!!! That is scary but then I’ll admit it is a little stressful waiting months to start. I’m ready to get it out of the way and start recovering. I think it would be good for the kids too. So bring it on Chicago…
Jennie's MS Journey 