Cord Blood Meeting

Yesterday was the long-awaited day we have been waiting for....Nonnie and Papa finally met with her main Oncologist and the representative from the Cord Blood Registry. It sounds like within 2 weeks, she will be back at UCLA to continue her treatment. Until then, she is awaiting the necessary authorizations from her insurance company, while the registry continues to work on getting the proper match.

The registry goes through a database of potential donors to find a match for the recipient. If you think of a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being a perfect match, they have found 4 potential donors that have a 6 of 10 match for Nonnie. That is a perfectly acceptable number for these type of transplants, whereas bone marrow transplants require a 9 of 10 match. Typically, the recipient will require 2 cord blood units due to the size and volume of the cord blood. Because Nonnie is over 50 years old, she will only receive 1 cord unit due to her age. 

Although there are only 4 cords that match Nonnie throughout the registry, they need to examine each one individually to find the very best match. We have learned that 1 of the cords is in Spain, and could take up to 2 weeks to get to UCLA. The other 3 are located in the United States and could be shipped the next day. Nonnie always wanted to be bilingual, so don't be surprised if she starts speaking Spanish after the transplant!