48.6 Billion Cells

Here are Woody's TIL cells (all 48.6 billion of them)...this is what they got out of the six large bags like Woody was holding yesterday. TIL stands for Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes. This milky substance is what they "strained" out of those large bags. This is the only bag of cells that he will receive. His nurse said that they had strained the gold out of those bags in the lab...the pure gold!


He had his cells infused around 12:30pm...that infusion lasted 20 minutes. His nurse stood there and kept moving the bag...to keep the cells from clumping and then at the end she made sure that the bag was completely empty...so he would get them all! Then two hours later he had IL-2...his old "friend." And, that old friend treated him about the same as before. Exactly one hour after the IL-2 infusion, he started having rigors (uncontrollable shakes...or as I labeled them the last time..."the quakes." They lasted for a total of 30 minutes. He said later that he didn't think that they were as bad as the ones he had with his other IL-2 treatments...all I know is that his bed was shaking quite a bit!

Woody has asked for prayer that his fever goes away and that it not indicate a problem or be a show stopper. He was piled with blankets for a while after he got the rigors...so that might have helped his body temperature go up. It was 100.4 and was down to around 99 this evening before I left. They are doing tests on his blood to make sure that he doesn't have any sort of infection. All precautions are being taken since his immune system is about nil at this point.

I had a busy day...got up and did laundry before I went over to the hospital. This evening Woody's floor nurses provided a dinner for all the guests here at the Safra Family Lodge. His nurses have healing hands...and are very good cooks, too!

After supper, I went back to sit with Woody till almost nine and then I rode the shuttle back to the lodge. Woody was feeling better this evening.

If all is "go" he will have his second IL-2 infusion at 11pm.