BONE MARROW TRANSPLANT!

Dearest Family and Friends,
When I walked into the room at UCLA, the first thing I saw was my little peach sitting up in her bed while the nurse was fiddling with about 20 lines coming from the two huge pumps by her bedside. Cookie gave me a smile, even though she had been up all night long and had a 102 temperature, and said "Hi, Grandma! I'm glad you're here. Today is the last day I will have cancer."

Cookie had been the most ill, never sleeping all night, because of the vomiting. They simply could not get it under control. They gave her Ativan, a large dose, and she was also hallucinating. By morning, she her body ached from retching all night long and they had to give her medication for pain also. Then, she began itching. They also started her nourishment, through IV. By mid morning, they were preparing her for the transplant, premedicating her and checking her lines, and what do you know? One of her lines is not working. We're now about an hour away from the transplant. Which, by the way, was a HUGE dark cloud that took all of the air out of the room as it hung langorously over all of our heads, including Cookie's. She could not relax or get comfortable or sleep, even after everything they gave her. She opened her eyes at the slightest movement, especially near her lines.

Once they plugged in the heart monitor, we could all see her level of anxiety. Her pulse was very high but she kept her emotions in check, as is her custom so as not to alarm or upset US. She thinks she's so clever but we're the pros. We know her every move. We were on to her. We were feeling the same as she was. Tough crowd.

For the line problem, which we've had in the past, there is a solution that they "push" into the line and let it sit there. It hopefully will clear the line. We're an hour away from transplant, the solution is in the line and we're ready to go......waiting for the cord blood to arrive. It's a small room and there's two beds, as I've mentioned before. Of course, Cookie is in one them. I'm sitting at the foot of her bed, holding her hand. She won't let go. I have a stitch in left side of my spine but she won't let go of my hand. They need her arm for the blood pressure cuff. She removes her hand for only as long as it takes to put the cuff on. I stand and stretch. She reaches for my hand. I'm back on the bed. As long as we can touch, we're safe. Thank God for Matt and his techno brain. He's documenting everying with is camcorder. I forgot mine at home but it would NOT be possible for me to do the bed thing AND film. I'm glad I forgot mine. Shelee is sitting right next to us on her bed.

Cookie's nurse for this day has been attending to her for the past two days. She rearranged her other schedules to be Cookie's nurse for the transplant. The nursing staff has been very good up until now. Fariba is a very tough act to follow. She's soft and caring, extremely effecient, informative and completely attentive. She even had burned her hand with hot water the day before making formula for a little baby patient and she still made sure she was Cookie's transplant nurse with a bandaged hand. It's the "Cookie Aura". Once you see it or are a part of it, you have a need to be near her. I'm not making this up. Ask anyone that knows her.

Ok, back to the room. Our doctor this week is one of Dr. Moore's associates, Dr. Kempert. She's a wonderful woman with a quiet and direct personna. She's there with us, our nurse Fariba, the care partner, Doreth, then two women enter with the cord blood in a red and white cooler. Fariba and the women, at the same time, read off a series of numbers and information on Cookie's wristband, then again to match it with the id on the cord blood. It's the right one! It's even the same BLOOD TYPE! How lucky can we get! It's traveled all the way from NEW YORK! It's a just a tiny little bag filled with the most precious, most anticipated, most important gift Cookie will ever receive. We all know it and we all feel it.

Fariba flushes Cookie's line and EUREKA!!! it's working! It's drawing back and we're good to go. NO WORRIES! We hope that this will relieve some of Cookie's anxiety. Next, the tiny traveler is hooked up and we begin the transplant at 1:00pm sharp, Wednesday, April 26, 2006. Cookie's little lip is quivering and she's trembling all over. It takes 6 minutes. It's done. We all picture the new little cells just running amok inside our girl, trying to find the best place to set up shop and call home. Our message to those little newcomers is....."Get comfortable! THRIVE! REPRODUCE! BE HAPPY! STAY FOREVER!!!!"

Fifteen minutes later, everyone is gone, except Fariba who stays in the room with Cookie for an hour after the transplant to make sure she's ok. Cookie's heart rate drops from 164 to 120 in those 15 minutes. They think she's going to sleep because of all of the medication they've given her and her anxiety. Nope. Not Cook. She wants to play Old Maid! Her Grammy brought her a huge bag of crafts and coloring books and all sorts of stuff, oh, and Old Maid. She beat me. Uh uh. She beat me. I had the Old Maid the whole time and she NEVER even came close to taking it. Dr. Kempert popped her head in and couldn't believe she was sitting up playing cards. Shortly after we finished playing, Cookie laid down and tried to get comfortable.

That cloud I spoke about had gone. We were all breathing normally and talking and even laughing. It felt SO good to LAUGH! In the ROOM! WITH COOKIE!

We're far from done but we're on the plus side now. No more chemotherapy. Cookie already has mouth sores and they're going to get a lot worse. The most frightening thing in front of us is how her body will react to it's new residents. This is the part called "Graph vs. Host Disease". It's level of severity is different for everyone. We have a lot of positive's going for us so we just have to wait and see. Cookie's immune system, at this point, is completely zero. You just don't realize how much you depend on your body to take care of itself. Cookie's body cannot take care of itself at all right now so that's the main concern.

Thank you one and all for the beautiful comments and good wishes you've been sending to Cookie! And thank you for all of the support you've been sending my way. We're so very grateful for the circle of friends and family that have formed around us. I hope we're as good of friends to all of you should you ever need us. But if you do, please try not to need us until we've finished climbing this mountain! Deal?
Have a beautiful day and I'll write again soon!
Much love, Gloria COOKIE Warren