Engraftment Results 2.5 years
Well life is never boring in this household. Kimbell hasn’t been doing so well for more then a few months. She kept telling me something was wrong and we needed to go to MN. You would think by now I would just get on a plane and take her but I kept thinking it’s winter so… Anyhow after a few emails with MN and a few labs one came back low that shouldn’t be low. As you can imagine this was quite rattling to us all. I suppose this far out of transplant you have adjusted to your new normal and in some ways feel invincible. We should all know better. Next thing we know we are drawing engraftment labs to be sent to MN. Those labs came back and she is still fully engrafted on long term immunity; however, short term immunity is still a problem. The good news the numbers have not gone down – actually they went up a couple of points but are still within the margin of error so essentially unchanged. Her hemoglobin has gone up, her ANC is still within normal range but 40% lower then 6 months ago and her platelets have dropped by about 25%.
So where do we go from here. The current plan which started Monday is to restart her prophylactic antibiotics that she was on post BMT. She will take those for the next two months and see how she does. If you remember at one year post she wasn’t supposed to ever have another bone marrow biopsy. Well this short term immunity engraftment has really thrown a monkey wrench in that plan and last year she had another one. Have I mentioned how much I love her BMT dr? HE wrote HER to tell her that he needs another biopsy. So I assume that will happen after these two months of antibiotics.
We honestly have no clue what is going on. Could she be losing her graft? Yes. What does that mean? At this point I don’t know. I think Jakub is trying to get her on better footing to see if her marrow can get some rest and kick in but I honestly don’t know. As you all know we are fighters but if I have learned one thing in all of this it is that everything is on God’s timeline, not ours and he has a plan. I know God works through Jakub and that they will take care of her so we continue to enjoy every day we have.
Kimbell asked me if she is starting over to which I responded that I didn’t know. She said she would not under any circumstances do another BMT, that she was done. I continued driving and a few minutes later she said well heck if I’m going to die I might as well die trying! Oh kiddo how much I love you and your attitude, even if you do drive me crazy at times.
On to other news – right after New Year’s when the house is a wreck and Christmas is everywhere K woke up hungry in the middle of the night. I’ve never been so grateful for her hunger. As she stepped off the last step she stepped into water!! K runs into the bedroom and turns the lights on – of course as John says you don’t poke a sleeping bear so he starts yelling at her to turn the lights off! Finally somehow she got some words out and John hopped out of bed into… you guessed it WATER! Long story short we are now living in a hotel. Yes our entire downstairs was flooded, not a little bit of a water nope I mean all out flood. We are down to the studs in many places. New cabinets, new floors, new counters as some of the old ones broke as they were removing them. New everything. We so do not have time for this!!
Last but certainly not least! Some of you know we breed and show Old English Sheepdogs – well both of those have been on hold for much longer then we had ever imagined. K’s only goal for the year was to get Stitch in the Top 20 – and the house floods 🙁 Then on my birthday I bred Vegas. My birthday is 2 weeks before Christmas – see the pattern. As always my parents came to the rescue and came and got Vegas b/c of course since we are living in a hotel she is pregnant!! On February 11 she welcomed 11 puppies!!! My poor parents, they really do deserve medals for all they do. So yes we have 11 OES puppies that are so adorable and doing great.
Thanks for listening and please keep us in your prayers, we need them!!
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