U of C Days 37 to 45

Apologies again for waiting so long in between posts. Leo is feeling better. He is walking the halls and sitting up much more now than he has been since the seizures. But his counts haven't come up. They have actually gone down and then come up slightly again. Last I posted, he was at 0.5 for his white blood cell count. He went as low as 0.2 a few days ago then back to 0.4 today. His doctors havemade it pretty clear that they're not going to let him go home until those counts come up a bit. He's still been getting a bunch of transfusions, both platelets and blood, so that pretty much the same as it has been.

Last Tuesday, Leo had a bone marrow biopsy and the good news is that they are seeing healthy red blood cells that are not his in the marrow. That indicates that the cells from the cord blood are starting to produce in his marrow. They infused 2 cord blood units and they are only seeing the cells from one of them, which means that likely his body didn't take the cells from the 2nd unit of cord blood. The cells that they're seeing are cancer free, which is great news, but there are very few of the cells, which they're disappointed about, but not totally discouraged. They have further tests coming in tomorrow or Tuesday that will give us more information on what's going on, but for now, the doctors want him to stay in the hospital until those WBC counts come up a bit more. The other piece of good news that we got is that his doctors recognize how much he misses the girls and have allowed them to come visit. Of course, they cannot be sick and they have to gown and mask up for the duration of the visit, but the doctors have written a note saying it is ok. We just have to be very careful because they are all going to daycare/school now and are exposed to many other kids and germs.

The ball park estimate the doctors gave on his potential release was sometime in October. So we will see how that goes. Thanks to everyone that has come by to visit. Leo really appreciates it and is so glad to see friends and family and to just chit chat for a while. Have a great week!

U of C Days 30 through 36

Sorry I haven't posted much in the past week. Its been crazy since I've been back to work as we're trying to get the federal return out the door. So between that, and the girls starting school and daycare this week and the hospital, I haven't had much time for anything. Leo is feeling better. But his counts haven't come up much. His WBC has come up slightly he is now at 0.5 which is still horribly low, but he was at less that 0.1 for months, so any little bit is an improvement. Hopefully the counts will start to come up soon, as that's they only way they'll consider letting him go home. He's much stronger than he was in the last couple weeks. He can now get up on his own to walk around or just go to the bathroom, so that's a huge deal.

Leo hasn't eaten in weeks and the doctors are a bit concerned. It's not that he doesn't try. He will try to eat something and it will come right back up. So he just hasn't eaten. So on Friday, his doctors added Marinol to his medicine buffet. What's marinol you say? Prescription marijuana. NICE!!!!! I hear it's all the rage. Hahahah...but the doctor's exact words were that he was going to start Leo on this Marinol so that he will "get the munchies" and hopefully start eating again. Hahahahaha.....He's been taking it for 2 days now and hasn't had any of the "munchie" side effects. So we will see how effective it is. :)

Leo's had a lot of visitors in the last week and I was to thank everyone that's taken time out of their schedule to come by. Especially to everyone at MTG. It really means a lot to Leo when people come by to visit and just appreciates the company and being able to talk to people other than his doctors and nurses. So if anyone else was thinking of visiting, please do so. Just make sure you're not sick. Thanks in advance.
Leo and I celebrated our 7 year wedding anniversary last Sunday. Obviously not the most ideal place to be celebrating, but we had a nice day just hanging out and watching our wedding video. We've been through so much in the last 7 years, but I think it has only made us stronger. Obviously, there's things I wish had turned out differently, but I think we've done our best to deal with what we were given. Without the great family and friends that we have, it would have been so much more difficult. Thank you all so much!

I hope everyone enjoys the long holiday weekend!