Stem Cell Floatillas: Or do my patiently waiting Stem cells really have a home? A GPS?

Hello all: This is most likely the last post till Monday but it will get you in tune to my Monday infusion expectations.

Today is the end of the 2-5 Etoposide, Cytarabine cocktail. Things have been dicey. Tomorrow I begin a fast acting Chemo called Melphalan..Need to get it in and out so I can begin the stem cell infusion on Monday. This one comes with a half hour of ice chips in my mouth to keep my mucous membranes cool and not blistery.......

Chemo is done!!!!!!!

Enough Gore...let's have some fun.

The answer to the math question was easy...it is two bags defrosted.

How are they defrosted ?: Hold your breath. On Monday they are brought down from the cryo lab in an Igloo Cooler (They promised it wasn't Bubba's fishing or beer chest from the weekend). OK!..they are thawed out in a sink like device at 38-40 degrees Celsius until they are "Technically" and "Medically" (my words) SLUSHY. Then they are hung to drip into me and the journey for these little suckers begins......into my system to replicate and find their way into my bone marrow....

And NOW? Do they really have a GPS? Will they find their way. The evidence is intriguing!!!!
The intriguing news.....
An unknown function that regulates how stem cells produce different types of cells in different parts of the nervous system has been discovered by Stefan Thor, professor of Developmental Biology, and graduate students Daniel Karlsson and Magnus Baumgardt, at Linköping University in Sweden. The results improve our understanding of how stem cells work, which is crucial for our ability to use stem cells to treat and repair organs. The findings are published in the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology.

Stem cells are responsible for the creation of all cells in an organism during development. Previous research has shown that stem cells give rise to different types of cells in different parts of the nervous system. This process is partly regulated by the so-called Hox genes, which are active in various parts of the body and work to give each piece its unique regional identity - a kind of GPS system of the body. But how does a stem cell know that it is in a certain region? How does it read the body's "GPS" signals? And how is this information used to control the creation of specific nerve cells?
In order to address these issues, the LiU researchers studied a specific stem cell in the nervous system of the fruit fly. It is present in all segments of the nervous system, but it is only in the thorax, or chest region, that it produces a certain type of nerve cell. To investigate why this cell type is not created in the stomach or head region they manipulated the Hox genes' activity in the fly embryo.
It turned out that the Hox genes in the stomach region stop stem cells from splitting before the specific cells are produced. In contrast, the specific nerve cells are actually produced in the head region, but the Hox genes turn them into another, unknown, type of cell. Hox genes can thus exert their influence both on the genes that control stem cell division behaviour and on the genes that control the type of nerve cells that are created.

Well "Infuse Day" Monday is Day ZERO  and in about 9-11 days later these big beautiful Stem Cell babies should hit pay-dirt...a long uphill journey then  these babies are gonna pop to their senses and bring my white cell counts to glory!!!!       Yay.!!!!!!

And like last week, the journey begins every day at O Dark 5am.......

See you all soon, smile, play, pray, and give someone a big hello......Love you bzers....