Happy Transplant Day!

 


Happy Transplant Day!

The day started early with Jacob's harvest procedure first thing this morning. Thankfully, everything went really smoothly. Other than some post-anesthesia looniness and lower back soreness, he seems to be back to himself already. 


Before

After

After we spent some time with Jacob in recovery, we all headed back to Aaron's room to hang out for a bit before the blood/cells were ready to go. Around 3pm, it was go time! Everyone piled into his room for the big moment. 
Look at that beautiful bone marrow!

Jacob being Jacob

True to their word, it was pretty anticlimactic. Aaron will receive the bag of blood over the course of the next two hours or so. While it may be an underwhelming process in itself, we are endlessly grateful for the gift that it represents. 


Jacob is our hero. At the age of 8, I know I would never have been as brave as he has been through the past year. He was absolutely terrified of today but kept marching forward, solely for the benefit of his brother. He sacrificed not only his bone marrow and blood, but two weeks of school, field trips, and a little bit of his childhood along the way. We tell the kids all the time - being brave doesn't mean not being scared. It means doing the hard thing when you are scared because it's the right thing to do. Jacob walked that out today. We're so proud of him!


It turns out he's quite the donor too! We're being told that this is one of the larger amounts that they've seen from a donor recently. Go Jacob!


And now we wait...the next step is for Aaron's body to start to work with the new blood cells and hopefully begin to replicate and regrow Jacob's cells instead of his own. We're being advised that he will probably feel worse next week - Days +4 through +10 will probably be the toughest. We will keep taking it one day at a time.

Thank you for all the kind thoughts and prayers up to this point! We've really been feeling the effects of them. So far, everything has been going according to plan and we couldn't be more grateful. We're coming up to the part where we just have to watch and see what happens next. It feels a little daunting right now but we know we can do hard things. We've seen God's faithfulness to us in the past and we will continue to walk in trust in the days to come. We can't thank all of you enough for all the prayers and support as we press on through this process.

In the coming days, here's what we're praying for:

  • For a successful transplant! Ultimately, we are praying most that the new cells would begin to grow and replicate in Aaron's body quickly. We'd love to see his counts start climbing quickly so he doesn't spend too long with low counts. And specifically that Aaron's body wouldn't reject the cells or start to regrow its own cells instead of Jacob's.
  • For no significant side effects as Aaron's counts continue to drop from the chemo conditioning and his body tries to acclimate. They are expecting some significant discomfort for him next week and we're just praying it stays mild and doesn't become debilitating.
  • For no complications from the transplant like Graft vs Host disease. That's when Jacob's cells attack Aaron's body in the absence of Aaron's immune system. It can cause some BIG problems, both now and later. We're praying that the closeness of their match, combined with the meds they are using to prevent rejection will help keep this at bay. 
  • For Aaron to remain healthy - virus and infection free - throughout the duration of the transplant. Any virus or infection during this time, when his defenses are so low, could be devastating.
  • For Aaron to tolerate the feeding tube procedure tomorrow (Friday) and be able to maintain the feeding tube for the duration to support his nutrition. We've been told that patients who keep the feeding tube are able to be discharged sooner.
  • For Jacob's recovery - that he wouldn't have any side effects and he would bounce back quickly without much pain or discomfort.
  • For everyone - both here and at home - to stay healthy so that we can continue to see each other as frequently as possible.
Thank you for following along and celebrating Aaron's new birthday with us! 

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