They Picked the 10 on 10!

I haven't had much time to post on the blog since Lyle got an early birthday present on Friday! Our BMT team met with us Friday afternoon and shared the great news of them choosing the 10/10 donor and confirming that they have Activated the donor. Things REALLY get rolling now!

Even though the waiting game has been long (and still is) it's a bit easier to put up with when Bella is doing so so well. She is a happy bug.  We were quite frustrated with different members of the team trying to keep us updated with the reasons why things were taking a little longer and the different waiting stages. They had promised an update meeting Friday morning. So we waited...waited some more...then 4pm rolled around and we were starting to accept we would have to now WAIT until Monday. But Dr. Lewis and our BMT nurse Ellen finally arrived and we had a great conversation about all the current details, activating the donor, etc. I'll try to share all the details from our meeting Friday in this post, but please forgive me if I use a lot of medical jargon. Its a lot easier for me to use the doctor's/specialist's terms that I have come to understand well because I have been in a hospital with my daughter for over a year. I feel like there's got to be some medical profession exam out there that I could challenge. I feel really confident that I'd pass. ha ha.
Anyway, on with the fun facts.

Our perfect match donor is Female. Her blood type is B. (Bella's is O, but with this BMT process, this is ok. I'll explain more later.) Our donor is of course the 10/10 match.

They are not allowed to tell us anymore details about our donor. However, we can write her a letter! The letter would have to be seen by very many inspecting eyes first to make sure we don't give any clues about Bella or us, but we can write her a letter! Otherwise, for many legal reasons we must wait 2 years before we are allowed to try and meet Bella's donor or contact them in any other way.
I have a hunch this girl is far away or out of Canada. I think I'm going to write myself a note of all the guesses I have about Bella's donor so when we finally meet her I can see how close I was on my guesses. From some of the way things have been going, the time, the words Dr. Lewis used in our conversation...I have a strong feeling she's not in Canada. (I also think I'd make a good detective, but that's off topic now.)

So yes, Dr.Lewis needed to inspect every detail of the 9/10 vs the 10/10 before choosing. They are very confident with choosing the 10/10 after receiving all the lab work info about both. The "matching" is the most important part of choosing between these two donors for Bella. The better match is Bella's best chance at not getting GVHD. (this can be very bad, do not want.) So after looking at the work ups of both donors they found they both past very well with flying colors in the areas involving other factors (infectious disease testing, etc) So they went back to saying, the better match comes first for Bella. The work ups included Infectious disease testing, exposures that have happened to the donor, etc. They were both equally perfect in these tests. We wouldn't have to worry or stress even if they did choose the 9/10 donor because Dr. Lewis said you can "sacrifice the match" in immune suppressed patients with the drugs they now have these days.

Even though our donor is a B blood type and Bella is an O, this is not a worry. They are focusing on fixing Bella's Immune System so this deals with her white blood cells. Because Bella is so small (a baby) and well just over 14lbs now, they will have plenty of Bone Marrow to separate without losing the amount they need to give Bella. There is only a certain amount of marrow you can draw from the donor. They can separate and take out what they need from the donor's marrow without sacrificing the amount Bella needs for this to be successful. If Bella were a larger person, this would not work. Bella would have to be the same blood type because if she were larger, and a different blood type, the "separating process" would not leave enough of what she would need. So because she's tiny, they can do the separating process and being different blood types (B and O) will not matter.

The next Waiting Stage:
Now that they have 'Activated the Donor' this means even more rigorous testing for the donor. The donor currently meets all safety and infectious disease testing criteria for Bella, now they have to make sure on a few more things. With the testing that now comes for the donor, some tests include making sure this procedure isn't a risk to themselves. For example they have to check that any type of anesthetics don't affect them in a bad way. Activating also means that our BMT team has contacted the donor's medical team/registry and offered dates they would like our donor to be available for the procedure day, when they draw the marrow. Our BMT team gave the donor a few date options within the next 4 weeks. Now we wait until (hopefully next week) for the donor to reply with a date that works for them. They said our donor has the option of requesting a sooner date from what our doctors offered  them as well! So hopefully next week we will have a date for Bella's DAY ZERO (transplant day).