Welcome to the Bennett Show
Featured: Golden Gate Scottish Terrier Rescue alumni Bennett leads the way, making a big statement during his stem cell donation. He went all in, giving 4x more stem cells than needed.
Today was the Bennett show (pictured above) and he put lymphoma on notice, letting it know that his stem cells aren’t just here to take part — they’re here to take over. The extraction went smoothly this morning, taking less than 2 hours. Naturally, he was a bit groggy after the procedure, but he is in good spirits and after his dinner, we all spent the afternoon watching Netflix.
We needed a minimum of 2 million progenitor cells per kg with 4 million being the ideal to ensure engraftment, and we just received word from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle that Bennett’s sample tested at approximately 14 million progenitor cells per kg — more than enough to help Wall-E! Dr. Sullivan and his team said that this was the best harvest they’ve ever seen. When Bennett wants to do something he clearly goes all in and we couldn’t be more thankful for him. I can’t say enough how much this gift means. It’s everything.
Featured: Dr. Ed Sullivan and Derek Holz of Bellingham Veterinary celebrate with Bennett after a jaw dropping stem cell harvest.
Wall-E received a heavy dose of elspar (rescue chemo) yesterday to ensure minimal tumor burden going into next week when he will begin the process of receiving full body radiation on Monday, followed by a second round on Tuesday. Shortly after that, he will receive the bone marrow transplant and he’ll be hospitalized as his white blood cell count drops to zero. Brother Wall-E will remain in isolation for about a week. When he is permitted to come out will largely depend on how quickly he recovers.
The grafting process (host integration of the new immune system) can take several weeks to complete. During that time, there will be numerous blood tests to monitor progress. As mentioned earlier, the new immune system given by Bennett will not be tolerant of any residual cancer and we expect this to put an end to what has been a long, arduous, exhausting battle for everyone involved. In the event that there is any resistance from the lymphoma, Dr. Sullivan has yet more contingencies already prepared, including stereotactic radiation on the lymph nodes and a vaccine (T-cell infusion) that he has prepared specifically for Wall-E which primes the new immune system to even further its assault on the cancer (graft versus tumor effect).
It was only 6 weeks ago that we thought we were going to Wall-E in a gruesome way to this evil disease. The future seemed grim and deeply depressing. Now, thanks to Bennett, the future looks bright, and alive with possibility.
Now, it’s Wall-E’s turn to fight and he is on a collision course with success. 🔥