The Schedule...

Here is Gracie's tentative schedule for the next couple of weeks. This is how it will go if she is admitted on Friday (as we are hoping!) You see the big day is on May 8th!

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
			April 23	24 ERT #11	25 Admitted to BMT	26 Begin Campath
27 Campath	28 Campath	29 Begin Busulfan	30 Busulfan	May 1 Busulfan	2 Busulfan	3 No Chemo
4 Begin Cytoxan	5 Cytoxan	6 Cytoxan	7 Cytoxan	8 Transplant Day	9 Day +1	10 Day +2

Campath is an antibody that sticks to immune cells, not an actual chemotherapy drug. This is a preparatory step for chemo. Busulfan will be her first real chemo drug (this is what makes your hair fall out). Cytoxan is the second chemo drug. We heard more info on them, but I don't remember them right now. Sorry! What I can tell you is that the doctors tell us that little kids actually tolerate chemo very well, which was a relief to hear.

On transplant day, Gracie will get an infusion from her umbilical cord blood donor, full of lots and lots of stem cells that will infiltrate the bone marrow, and ultimately help Gracie independently produce the enzyme she is missing. It will take a while for this to happen, so she will continue weekly ERT (enzyme replacement therapy) infusions until she does. More than any other time, she will need your thoughts and prayers during this part of the process.

You'll notice that after Transplant day, we start a new counting method and essentially a new calendar. This calendar "Day +1, Day +2, ..." refers to the number of days since Gracie was given a new chance at life. Thanks so much for all of your prayers and words of support.