Mac & I did a quick trip to St. Jude Thursday and returned Friday after his appointment. It was nice to see all of our hematology team and catch up. They are all so excited that we were home for the month!! All his numbers were up and his chemistries were good (we always pay special attention to his creatinine, BUN, magnesium, potassium). His hemoglobin made it to the low 9's!!! It needs to get above 11, but since he hung out in the 7's and 8's for so long (he gets transfused at 7) it was good to see 9. His platelets moved up a bit more and his ANC was 9600. We are now starting the decrease in the shot. We expect to see his ANC drop as a result, but hopefully the hemoglobin and platelets won't be affected. We'll check his counts again in 2 weeks here in NO, and then go back to Memphis in a month.

He's doing fine otherwise. Just to give you some perspective, when we got to NO Children's Hospital last July, his hemoglobin was 4, his platelets were 7000 (normal is above 150,000), and his ANC was 300. And he'd been to tennis, a friend's house, and was at soccer practice when I got the call from our pediatrician. Kids are amazing! We keep telling him he's gonna feel like superman when his counts get up to normal! He's already beginning to run around and play more as he builds up his stamina.

Thanks for reading! Please keep your fingers crossed and your prayers coming! It obviously takes a while for the bone marrow to recover. It's hard to continue to "wait and watch" but it's all we can do. And we're happy to be doing this from home and thankful we're not in the middle of a BMT right now! That's the miracle of it all.

It's been a while since I've written, but as my cousin Vivi wrote, "I assume no news is good news"!!! You can definitely assume that in our case!! When things get bad, I go straight to the blog!! But since we've been home, we've jumped right back into to our old ways, with a few added duties (dressing changes, shots, etc.) As if we weren't busy enough before....

Mac is doing fine, his labs taken at NO Children's Hospital last week show greater improvements in his platelets, and his hemoglobin in holding steady. We go back to St. Jude next week. There is talk of starting to decrease the dose given in his shot. (This is the shot given to get the ANC up, and it's up pretty high now. Remember the days when his ANC was 0? Unfortunately I remember it all too well. Now it's up at 7700! With the dose decrease, that number will drop I assume. Anything above 1800 is ok. ANC stands for Absolute Neutrophil Count. They are the white cells that help fight infection.)

We had a relaxing Easter, and Mac is doing great with his home bound school program. Miss Cathy is so nice and has been teaching home bound students for 25 years. There's a lot of independent work Mac can do on the computer, so he gets in a couple hours a day. I went on a field trip with Annie, went to a couple of Peter's soccer games, and am having major spring cleaning projects at home. If you open closet doors now, things won't fall on top of you!

That's about it. I'll update again after our appointment next Friday. Thank you for reading and praying for the specific counts. I think God heard the platelets loud & clear. Now we need him to hear hemoglobin. (Maybe megaphones would help!) And we need to pray for steady counts as the medicines start to decrease. I know I'm holding my breath!