One Year!!

 It's hard to believe that it's been a full year since the transplant! 

We haven't had any updates since September, partially because it's just been 9 months of slow and steady progress. We're so thankful that Aaron didn't experience any major setbacks this past year. We visited the BMT Clinic at CHOP once a month, as slowly his counts rose and his meds decreased. 

We've learned that slow and steady is the name of the game with bone marrow transplants. Aaron's platelets were slow to recover, only recently getting back into the totally normal range. At this point, his basic metabolic panel looks like nothing ever happened! How cool. On a deeper level, we recently had his engraftment studies completed, and it seems like his blood is still 99% comprised of Jacob's donor cells. That's a huge praise - more than we could have hoped for! It means, ultimately, the transplant was a success.

We're still waiting for his TCell production to increase a bit more. It seems a little more sluggish than expected, but the doctors are encouraged that his TCells are functioning normally, so that's good news. He met the threshold level for BCells and TCells so he was able to start his course of vaccines. The BMT process wipes your immune system completely clear so Aaron needs to be re-vaccination for all the childhood illnesses again. Poor guy! He's had two rounds so far and is scheduled for another 3 rounds between now and this time next year. We're glad to get that process started though, as it means that he can venture further out into the world.

Truthfully, the isolation while we needed to protect Aaron's immune system was harder than we expected. Up until March, Aaron hadn't been anywhere other than our home and the hospital at all. But now that his counts are rising and his vaccines are beginning, Aaron has slowly been inching his way back into regular life. By Christmas, he was able to hang out with family and friends in small groups while wearing a mask. By March, he joined us on a family ski trip (no skiing for Aaron this year, maybe next year!) By April, we took a family trip to NYC and he was able to go back to school one day a week. All were exciting steps for progress!

And we have big plans for the summer. We leave in a few weeks for a trip to California where we'll go to Disneyland, celebrate Jacob's 10th birthday at Universal Studios, and visit our family at the beach. Later in the summer, we're taking Aaron and Sam to London to celebrate both Aaron's one year transplant milestone and his 16th birthday. And what a celebration it will be! We can't say it enough - it has been a long, hard journey but filled with light and hope as we look around us to see what God has done. Not only did He heal Aaron through the miraculous work of science and doctors (and a very loyal and brave Jacob!) but He has surrounded us with a community who lifted us up and carried us through. Despite what felt like moments when our hearts were breaking, we could see God at work in the midst, mostly through all of you who have prayed for us, checked in on us, and cared for us better than we could have known that we needed. Thank you!!