Who Needs Superman!
11-20-06
On Saturday Devon came down
to the hospital to get his bloodwork done. They took
thirteen vials of blood from him. Thirteen! You should have seen Devon's face when the lab technician showed him how much
blood she needed. Our beloved Nurse Bonnie gave him some numbing cream
beforehand--Devon was amazed that he
didn't feel a thing when they poked him.
Today he spent the morning going through all the
pre-transplant workups--an evaluation in day surgery, a physical exam, and a
psychological exam in the bone marrow transplant clinic. He wanted to know all
the details involving his part as a donor, so Lynette (the BMT nurse
practitioner) got out a visual aid to show him how they will insert a needle
into his back hip bones to suction out the marrow. Devon
loves all things involving science, so this was right up his alley,
although he was a bit disappointed that she didn't have a full-size skeleton
to demonstrate on!
For those of you who have been regularly keeping up on our
family, you already know that our Devon is not
a bit anxious or even slightly fearful of going through the bone marrow harvest
procedure. He fully understands that his bone marrow is crucial to saving his
baby brother's life. He is cheerfully ready to do his part in the hopes that Jaymun will get a brand new immune system from this
transplant. Dr. Margolis, the BMT doctor, thanked Devon
and told him he's a real hero for helping Jaymun out.
He especially thought it was hilarious that Dr. Margolis told him, "Superheroes
are wimps compared to you, Devon!"
He'll be admitted the morning of the transplant and be
fully sedated. The doctors will then take the necessary amount of stem cells
from Devon and a bit extra to freeze for any
later procedures. When Devon wakes up, he'll
be sore. Very sore, from what we're told. Our oncologist said many donors have
told her that it feels like a horse kicked them in the back. When Sean heard this
he said, "Good thing it's your butt that's going to be sore, Devon!" (Ah, the love of brothers...) They need
to "clean" the bone marrow first before administering it to Jaymun later in the day. Devon
will be able to actually watch the bag of marrow go into his brother--it's much
like a blood transfusion.
We are,of
course, trying to make this procedure of Devon's
a positive one. He's doing it for the sake of someone else, not because he
needs it for his own medical benefit. That's a pretty inspiring thing for a
seven year old to undertake. Many of you have asked what you could do to
encourage him. Here's what I came up with:
-All kids love mail, that's a given! If anyone reading this
would like to send Devon a card or package, I
am planning on saving all his mail for him to open up after his procedure. The
cards should be something along the line of "Good Job" or "Way
to Go!" or "Thank You", etc. (You get the drift!) Mail it to the
hospital address listed on the top right of this website. Please address it to
my name and simply write "Devon"
in the lower corner or on the back, so I'll know it's designated for him. As
far as ideas for little presents:
-Hot Wheels cars
-Lego kits
-Gift cards for books
-Anything to do with science, snakes, bugs, sharks, dinosaurs or hippos
-Drawing materials (Devon loves art and drawing--he goes through massive
amounts of paper and art supplies at home!)
-Outer space, planets, solar system, etc. (He is heavily interested in these things as well.)
-His favorite color is orange, if that helps anyone out there!
These are just some ideas off the top of my head. And again,
this blog is for those of you that asked if there was
anything you could do. The actual transplant is November 30th, so I would
strongly suggest mailing things out in the very near future so I have them here
for him. He would be so delighted to open up tons of mail from people!
Thanks for thinking of him...
