Today’s the day
The day we begin the new CAR-T Therapy.
Avery’s day starts at 7:30am when they take her downstairs to insert the line they’ll be using to harvest her T-cells, as well as do another bone marrow biopsy.
Then, she is tentatively scheduled to begin the CAR-T Therapy process around noon.
The team from Carter BloodCare will do the “harvesting.” They will take some of her blood that contains the T-cells.
The process will take about 4 hours and requires Avery to lie down for the duration.
Today that may not be a challenge because she’ll be groggy from the anesthesia from the line insertion and biopsy.
But, they have to draw a certain amount of T-cells no matter the size of the patient, so it could take up to 3 days with babies.
Fortunately, Avery’s counts have been high over the past few days, so we’re hoping we don’t need that third day at least.
Then we wait.
We wait for the biopsy results to come back and tell us how well her cancer has responded to the last chemo.
And we wait for the reprogramming of the T-cells over the next 3-4 weeks.
Then, it’s more waiting to see if, once introduced back into her little body, they are able to do the job they were trained to do.
It’s going to be a long process with lots of waiting, but we’ve seen Avery kick cancer’s booty before, and fully expect her to do it again. For good.
Please pray for a successful procedure today; good harvest day; and our hearts as we wait. We’re anxious but encouraged.
Mostly, pray for Avery’s little body as it endures the process. She is the strongest warrior we know.
