VERY IMPORTANT-PLEASE READ-Stem cell transplant person from our site.

Hi ALL,
We have a member of this site, Alice, who is about to go through the
Stem Cell Transplant Procedure, (Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation),
at Northwestern University in Chicago.
She will be officially entering the program on 8 September.
Please, please, PLEASE, all of us say an extra prayer that first, she makes it through the procedure without any kinks, and second, THAT IT WORKS!!!

First, as some of you know, Alice is a police officer for the city of San Francisco, currently on sick leave due to the CIDP she has. As with me, she failed the normal protocol of treatments, (IVIG, Plasmaphereses, etc.).
She “got dealt some very shitty hands”, in that her first, the treatments tried didn’t work, then her first health insurance company denied authorization, (of which she fought very hard with a letter-writing campaign). Then, her second insurance company denied authorization, with both companies stating that they “don’t cover experimental procedures”.
This is the only thing left to try, when you’ve gone through everything else, to no avail. Luckily, she has a caring family, who is taking care of the costs. She is very blessed for that.

First, they will harvest her own stem cells.
Then she will be going through a VERY risky procedure, in that she will have 4 days of high-dose chemotherapy. This is to TOTALLY wipe out her immune system. That is where the risk comes in–she can easily have any type of disease or infection affect her tri-fold. Then they will put in the stem cells, to rebuild her new immune system.

She is faced with severe side-effects, and I am sure will have a rough time.
Only seven or eight people with CIDP have gone through this procedure, of which with 2 people, it failed.

We have to ALL wish her the very best, and hope things go well for her. This will take a long time, (months). And we have to all hope this procedure WILL work for her and put the nasty CIDP into remission!!!
KEDASO
(Ken)