Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Day 75

Not a whole lot has changed as we keep moving forward. Carter has been doing his school at home and reading lots of books. We've also been going to parks at off times and visiting family. He's had some buddies over, which has made life feel more normal. We are going to the doctor two times a week now. Carter is off of the steroids so we are hoping he loses some of his squirrel cheeks and starts to look more like Carter. His appearance has changed so much over the past few months. He's got hair. .everywhere. His counts all look terrific! Much higher than they've been over the last year. We are monitoring a rash that the doctors think might be eczema. All things considered, he is doing great and in good spirits. Thanks to everyone for the continued love and support!

Friday, January 9, 2015

Day 64



Things with Carter have been great. We had a great Christmas and New Years. He has been feeling pretty great and even playing outside some. We have played a lot of Super Smash Brothers on the Wii, Minecraft, Monopoly, watched a lot of movies, and eaten a lot of popcorn lately. We are mainly trying to hang out indoors and keep visitors to small amounts of people since the flu is supposed to be pretty bad this year. We've had two virus scares. The first one he was put on meds for and it seemed to resolve and then this past Friday we had to be admitted to the E.R. because he had some "explosive diarrhea" as he called it. They gave him a whole bunch of tests, viral stuff etc. to see what was going on and everything came back negative. He was showing a high amount of the EBV virus in his body though. After transplant, there is a possibility of old viruses the child has had with their old immune system reactivating and causing trouble for the new immune system which is still so new. That seems to be what's going on with Carter. After the weekend, he also had a new rash (which they think is eczema) and still having ED, so they wanted to do a PET scan to see what all was going on in his body. He hasn't had any graft vs. host issues yet so I think the doc was worried that could be what was causing his symptoms. After a biopsy of the rash and the PET scan yesterday, she just called and said it looks clear and she thinks he just is working through something viral. 

He is now at 75-89% cellulousity in his marrow. 97% donor, which the doctor says is "remarkable" for this early after transplant. He went into transplant with 10% cellulousity and all of his counts low. Now his marrow is operating normally and the doctor said his counts all look normal. Everything is going along swimmingly and I'm trying to focus on the positive. Celebrating the victories and trying not to worry about possible complications. Carter is kicking butt. Reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and being his normal self. He gets a little burdened every now and then with all of the stuff going on, but always bounces back after we talk a little. Thanks to everyone for your love and support!