Yesterday morning, Linda was released from the hospital, and we brought her home!!!

As the doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and case manager walked us through her discharge, we came to realize that our expectations of Linda’s ongoing care were more in line with someone who had a donor stem cell transplant . . . not an autologous stem cell transplant (autologous referring to someone having their own stem cells removed and then replaced later).  We thought Linda would need to have all her vaccinations redone, multiple visits to the cancer center a week, face-mask in most public places, and multiple precautions at home.  We sensed a great deal of relief when we realized that most of those realities are for donor stem cell transplants.  If I’m understanding correctly, since Linda received her own stem cells back, those stem cells already have the immunities within them that she possessed before.

She will need to go into the cancer center next week once, but if her blood tests go well, it may be a few weeks before she has to go back and even longer as she improves.  Linda will need to be careful when going into public places where sick people may be, other than that, she won’t need to wear a face-mask.  I know our church people will be relieved, since I told some of them that we would all wear face-mask to church so Linda didn’t feel awkward 🙂  (Imagine being a visitor walking into that scenario.)

So then, Linda is home!  We’re so thankful for the effectiveness of her treatments and the wonderful care she received by the UW doctors and nurses.  They were wonderful.

Be praying for her . . . her nurses are now a husband, sister, and 4 kids.  We have a tendency to smother her a little more than the hospital nurses . . . we also think she’s super-woman and may too quickly think she can conquer the world again 🙂  We’ll be careful.  Promise.