The next week
Nia is 14
The next week
Nia is 14
Nia is going home today!
If there are no big problems, you will leave the hospital.
The timing is different for everyone:
- Your doctors decide how long you need to stay in the hospital.
- They only let you leave if they think it will be safe.
- Most people stay in the hospital for 3 to 5 weeks after they get their genetically-changed stem cells.
You can still have some problems after you leave the hospital.
You will be immunocompromised (unable to fight germs) for a few months. But, unlike bone marrow transplant, gene therapy does not have a risk of graft versus host disease.
You will be very immunosuppressed (unable to fight germs).
- Chemotherapy kills your unchanged stem cells. This means you will not have enough white blood cells (immune system cells) for a few months.
- Your genetically-changed stem cells will start making new white blood cells, but you can still get very sick from germs for a few weeks or months after chemotherapy.
- For the first few weeks, you are at the highest risk of getting very sick from germs. In the hospital, they take extra care to keep germs away from you.
- Your doctors will also give you medicine to fight germs.
With gene therapy, you are not as immunosuppressed (unable to fight germs) as you would have been with a bone marrow transplant.
You do not need to take immunosuppressive medications to protect you from graft versus host disease after gene therapy. This is because the genetically-changed stem cells come from your own body.