All was good today at the clinic. Only required magnesium. We finished there around 1; it would have been sooner except for 2 things. First of all we both had to learn how to draw up insulin into a syringe and how to give the shots. That went well and I gave Peter his first shot in the arm before dinner.
The second thing is quite interesting. Peter has been asked to be in a clinical trial, actually right now he would be the clinical trial - the only participant right now. It seems that sometimes babies are born without thymus glands. Because the thymus gland is the "school" for T cells to learn how to fight infections, babies without thymus glands usually don't survive very long. It is also common that when babies are born with heart defects and require open heart surgery, they thymus gland is partially removed and discarded.
About 15 years ago a research MD wondered if parts of these glands could be transplanted into babies and if these would function as thymus glands for those babies. Of the 44 babies they have done it on, 32 have successfully converted these sections to function as the thymus glands to build up the babies immune as would happen normally.
In adults or most everyone over 15-20 years of age, the thymus glands atrophy and no longer functions. Since adults with cord blood stem cell transplants are basically newborn babies immune-wise, this trial would see if the same procedure would work in these adults. Peter has fully engrafted and since almost all his cells are from one donor, he is considered a perfect candidate.
He needs to decide by Monday and then it would take 10 days to 2-3 weeks before the procedure would be performed. Basically they make a small incision into the muscular portion of his thigh and insert a piece of tissue about the size and consistency of a gauze pad. This could be done with "happy" juice. There should be an increase in the rate of increase in his immune system recuperation and in about 10 weeks a biopsy would be performed to verify that it has worked.
There are many benefits for Peter and few risks. If successful his immune system would grow much faster than it normally would and he may not require all the usual childhood vaccinations. Another advantage would be that he would not be as limited in dealing with small children & infants; with his compromised immune system he could catch anything they do. With a better immune system he would be less at risk.
Peter had a nice visit with Pastor Ray today. I visited for a few minutes and then took advantage of having someone there so that I could go get a haircut. Peter brought him up to date on the medical situation, and we were both reminded that our church family is there for us, all we need do is ask.
Heather came by for a few minutes and is planning on coming out Saturday with her friend Mark. They will be out bike riding and plan to stop by here.
Tomorrow is Friday, right? It's hard to keep track of time lately. Hopefully it will be another short day.
Until then,
Wendy
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