Journal entry by Tamberlyn Bieri —
I am going to be completely transparent here. We have known about the donors for about a month, but didn’t want to jeopardize any of the bone marrow drives that were being hosted in Olivia’s name. We didn’t want people to not show up because “she has her donor”.
And isn’t life funny, after holding on to this information for a month, and posting the great news last night….
Her 100% match here in the US didn’t pass the physical exam. This can be for any number of reasons. She has been deemed ineligible for at least 6 months. We are so thankful she was willing to donate, and it is comforting to know she may be eligible again, if needed, in the future.
Olivia’s oncologist has also determined that the matches in Germany do not work for Olivia’s timeline. Apparently it could take 6-12 weeks to work through their system. Appointments and donor sites are not as readily available in Europe, and since they are part of a different registry it is not ideal.
So, this is just part of the roller-coaster of logistics and emotions that we have become accustomed to.
Her team wants to move forward with Jacob as the donor even though he is a 50% match.
One of my biggest concerns with using his donor marrow is Graft Vs Host Disease. We have been told that the risk of her rejecting his donor marrow is the same as if she had a 100% match donor from a stranger. This is because they are siblings. That is reassuring.
Our other concern for him is his mental health if it is not successful. He has struggled since Olivia’s diagnosis and our job will be to make sure he totally understands that if for some reason it doesn’t work, it isn’t on him. It definitely adds another layer to have him involved and to be worried about both kiddos.
We are anxious to move forward and have her home for a bit before we go back in for 6 weeks.
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