Slow and Steady!

 It was a quiet weekend, which is exactly what we wanted! Aaron slept a lot, which makes sense since his body is working in overdrive to heal and recover. For the past 3 days, all his counts have been moving in the direction that we want! We are so grateful.

As of this morning, his ANC is 250 👏 so we are about halfway to the goal for engraftment. His WBC are slowly climbing as well. His hemoglobin and platelets are holding steady, which is good, but he's hovering near the thresholds for those numbers and may need more transfusions as the week goes on. It makes sense as the body takes longer to produce those types of cells so hopefully they'll catch up to the others and start building themselves up pretty soon.

Aaron feels okay most of the time, other than sleeping a lot. His pain is still manageable, which we are very thankful for. Other than some mild nausea and some skin irritations, he seems to be handling the side effects fairly well. He may need to get the feeding tube replaced later this week so they can wean him off of the IV nutrition. He's not looking forward to that but willing to do it if it's necessary to go home faster. Eating is a struggle right now so hopefully he can make some progress on that this week. 

Speaking of home, on Wednesday we will have been here for 4 weeks. The original estimate for our stay was about 6 weeks. This morning, during rounds, the team said that if everything continues this way, we could be heading home by the end of next week. Which feels exciting and also terrifying at the same time. While I am SO ready to all be back in the same home, I'm also nervous about leaving the super controlled environment of the hospital. We will have to learn some nursing care skills to manage his feeding tube and central line, both of which intimidate me. So I'm not entirely sure how to feel about all of that yet, except grateful that he's doing well enough to even consider it. 

Regular life updates: this is the last week of school for Jacob and Sam! 2 more full days and 2 half days and then they are done for the summer. Friday is the first day of summer vacation AND Jacob's 9th birthday so excitement levels are HIGH at home. I've been able to catch some of Sam's baseball games through livestream, which isn't quite the same, but I'll take it. Both Aaron and Sam have their end of year award ceremonies on Thursday which we're all excited about. After Thursday, we'll have a 9th grader, 7th grader, 3rd grader and a Kindergartener! YIKES.

Some prayer requests:

  • We are hoping for another quiet week of steady improvement in Aaron's counts. We couldn't be more grateful for the way that things are trending and we're hoping he continues on this road. We want that ANC to climb (and stay) above 500, and for the rest of the numbers to continue to rise back into normal territory.
  • We are still on the lookout for signs of rejection. Specifically, the concern in this time frame is  GVHD (which would be Jacob's cells attacking Aaron's) which can be mild or severe. We are hopeful he can avoid any complication of that nature.
  • That Aaron would be able to tolerate the replacement of the feeding tube, if that's needed. The procedure (and sedative) kind of knocked him for a loop last time. Hopefully knowing more about what is to come would help this time, but it's still fairly unpleasant to endure.
  • We are thankful for continued management of his pain. They will start to wean his pain meds sometime this week, which is another step towards going home! Hopefully his pain doesn't increase too significantly as the pain meds decrease.
  • Aaron has a big blood test coming up early next week. It is called a DHR and it will give us the first glimpse into whether it's Jacob's cells that are growing or if Aaron's have regrown on their own. Basically, it will let us know if this whole process has been successful. We are praying that we will get encouraging results from that test!
  • That everyone would stay healthy at home. We are hoping to do something fun in the city for Jacob's birthday on Friday as a family and maybe have some of the kids be able to visit Aaron while they are here. The only way for that to happen is if everyone is in good health and Aaron's counts are still trending up. 
Here's to hoping for more encouraging and boring updates! 

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