The University Hospital has received a grant to study the health of caregivers who take care of cancer patients. They want to measure how the stress affects the health of the caregiver, and to see if the help they provide improves the well being of the caregiver. There will be two groups; one that gets all of the support including counselling and breathing techniques, and one that gets support but not all the special attention. They chose the caregivers at random, so I have no idea what group I will be in.
We arrived at 1:30 for our caregivers meeting on the first floor to sign consents and hear what I will be doing for the study. We went up to the third floor for our meeting with the BMT leaders, Dr Brunvand and his scheduler/assistant Pat Wagner. After checking Jody's weight, vital signs and drawing blood samples we met with Dr. Brunvand and Pat Wagner. We were told Jody will be part of a research study, which measures the success using the protocol Dr Brunvand has chosen. Jody is part of a group in the single digit thousands who have Myelofibrosis. They want to know how successful each protocol is in curing or extending the patient's life, and/or their quality of life. Even though this procedure has been done over 200 times before, each condition is different. Age, health condition, male/female, attitude, and disease progress are just a few varying conditions.
The really GREAT news is... On a scale of one to ten points (ten being the highest risk factor) Jody is rated at "One". Each point equals 5%, This means Jody's chance of surviving is 95%. She has a 60% chance of being cured of her disease long-term. There is a slightly higher risk (higher than the general public) that she could relapse or get another type of cancer.
Jody's cure depends on how well the stem cells graft into her bone marrow. The BMT team is confident they have chosen the best protocol to make this happen successfully. There remains a chance that her body will reject the foreign cells.
In exchange for being cured she will be getting another disease called "Graft vs. Host" I discussed this in an earlier post. Her immune system will be from her donor and the new immune system will look at her entire body as being foreign and try to attack her. She will be on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of her life as well as have take extra precautions to avoid germs and viruses.
For those who have not read my information on her disease I am including a link below....
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