Monday, April 12, 2010

Transplant? Done!

Hi all, just a quick update to say that the transplant went well insofar as The Husband didn’t have any immediate adverse reactions, so we’re already pretty happy! Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that he’s out of the water, the difference between a bone marrow transplant and an organ transplant is that we won’t know for many weeks and months exactly how his body is going to react. The best case scenario, which is what we’re aiming for, of course, is that six months from now he’ll be able to stop taking any meds cause the new immune system finally recognizes The Husband’s body as its own (the first few months they have to keep his immune system “depressed” cause it could randomly attack parts of The Husband’s body that it recognizes as foreign… seeing as the bone marrow comes from someone else… don’t know if I’m explaining it very well!). Right now though, poor Husband is feeling pretty badly. He had a high temperature for about a week, he can’t eat and has a hard time swallowing just water… but the doctors say it’s all normal after all the chemo he’s had and especially after the radiation therapy. He should start feeling a little better in another week, so we’re all really looking forward to that!!
On the home front, everybody seems healthy (knock on wood, touch iron etc…), we’ve had a few really nice, sunny days and so we’ve started enjoying the yard, finally. The Boy got a pair of new sandals on Saturday and he loved them so much he had them on after his bath, while in bed waiting for me to tell him a story, convincing him to take them off to sleep was not easy! Of course, he’s been wearing them since then, despite the rain, with socks on, like a little German (I presume in honor of his dad’s donor, to whom I will dedicate a post soon). The Brazilians came to visit on Saturday and the kids had A LOT of fun, even The Girl really wanted to join in!
As far as I’m concerned, I’m just really looking forward to May, when The Husband comes home, and life will hopefully start going back to normal, or as normal as it can get in this intermediate post transplant phase. I guess I just really want the whole family under one roof again, that’s enough for now, and really until something like this happens we never really realize what a blessing that simple idea is.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Happy Easter

HAPPY EASTER!
The Husband has been back in the hospital since last Monday. He finished 3 days of radiation therapy, twice a day, and he’s started his last round of chemo. This time around it’s been a lot tougher on him, he started feeling bad right away, unfortunately. Obviously the idea that it’s almost over is what’s keeping him going at this point. The bone marrow transplant is scheduled for either Thursday or Friday, so please, please, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers this week. Unfortunately, once it’s done we’re not quite finished yet because it’ll take several months for his body to accept the new bone marrow, they say that patients that react well to transplants take 6 months to go back to a normal life (others have to be on meds long term, and then there’s the really negative option that we’re not even considering). But once he’s home again (probably early May) we’ll all be happier and more relaxed and we’ll just have to help him recuperate and get his energy back. On the home front, The Boy’s been sick with either scarlet fever or impetigo… whatever it was it looked a lot like what The Girl had… but at least now he’s well on his way to being healthy and hopefully he’ll go back to daycare this week (every day he asks me if he’s going to “school” tomorrow…)
We had a nice Easter with The Boy and The Girl’s Nonno, cousin R and Uncle F (their Nonna was in the hospital with her “baby”) and now we’re all looking forward to the week starting and hopefully everything going back to normal. We have a really long to do list to get through before Daddy comes home!
That’s all folks!
Hope you had a wonderful Easter, and please think positive thoughts our way for the transplant!