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.