Lauren has an appointment today to have a chemo treatment and to have her blood count checked. While the chemo treatment is just a push and will take less than a minute, we're going to stick around in case they recommend a blood transfusion. Lauren seemed pretty tired the past couple of days. However, before they do the treatment, Dr. Patel wants to check out Lauren's tummy and see how her constipation is going. This chemo causes constipation. Lauren's tummy is still feeling pretty solid, so I wouldn't be surprised if she decides not to give her the chemo treatment.

Also, the date for Lauren's next surgery is set for Monday, June 9th, to insert a bigger port in her hip area to harvest her bone marrow. This will be Lauren's 5th surgery since April and her 7th and 8th incision. The reason for the 2nd port is because the existing port is not big enough to harvest her bone marrow. The harvesting procedure was described as Lauren being hooked up to a big machine and her blood circulated and filtered through the machine, kind of like a kidney dialysis machine. The harvesting will be done on Tuesday, June 10th and if needed Wednesday. Hopefully they can collect enough bone marrow on Tuesday, if so, she'll have the port removed that night. They said she'll have difficulty walking with the port in her hip. They will freeze the collected bone marrow until after Stage 2, when we start the serious chemo and actually attack and hopefully vaporize the tumor. All the chemo treatment to date has been just to stabilize the tumor and prevent it from growing. For the bone marrow harvesting, we'll have to start giving Lauren the gcsf shots again. We need to triple the dosage amount three days prior to the harvesting. GCSF helps increase her blood counts and the bone marrow.