My wife went through this treatment in 1998 at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill NC. if they still do it the same way, they harvest the stem cells from your body, cryogenically freeze them, kill all the bone marrow in your body with chemo and then reintroduce your stem cells so that your bone marrow gets rejuvenated. At that time, it took a couple visits to the hospital for them to harvest eough stem cells. In preparation, they stimulate the stem cells to multiply more quickly before harvesting by daily injections of some drug for about 2 weeks. (I can't remember the drug's name) Then you go into the hospital for about 3 weeks to have the high dosage chemo and the stem cells reintroduced. If i remember right, chemo was for about 4 days, then they gave you a day to rest, reintroduced the stem cells on Day 6. After a few days, the stem cells begin to rejuvenate your bone marrow. Then it is about 10 days of stabilizing, recovery, regaining strength etc. This was followed by months of seeing the doctor, daily at the beginniing and less and less as time went on. All in all, it was very interesting science. again, I do not know if it is still the same protocol they follow or not, my wife was a long tme ago. She just celebrated her 15th year as a survivor of breast cancer !
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