We ended up going to Memphis at the end of October because Hurricane Isaac had messed up the school calendar and basically pushed everything a week later. Mac's counts were good. His hemoglobin was 11.5. We have never seen 11!! His platelets were 87K, and Martha and Dr. Reiss think this may be Mac's new normal for platelets. While significantly low, he can live forever with platelets in the 80's. (Normal is above 150K.) His hemoglobin is low also, but livable. They told me many bone marrow failure patients do not reach normal levels, but live their lives with livable levels, never playing in the NFL or sky diving. I felt a little disappointed with this news because I was just assuming Mac's counts would someday go on to complete recovery, but we'll take "liveable" for sure!

So.... the plan is to be a little more aggressive with the tapering. We are going down on the Tacrolimus (the oral medicine) by 25% and will check labs in a month here. We are keeping the shot dose where it is and concentrating on the other medicine first. It was exactly 3 years mid October that Mac had the second treatment, the one that has been slow but steady, and has gotten us to today!

We are also in the middle of fundrasing for St. Jude. Team MacAttack is participating in the St. Jude marathon, 1/2 marathon and 5K for the 4th year! If you feel like you could make a contribution to our team, I'm including the link. You can pick whatever runner you want to put the contrbution under, it all goes to the same place! I stole this line from a tshirt I saw at the race last year: "We are running for their lives!" How's that for a reason to contribute?!!

http://heroes.stjude.org/TeamMacAttack

As always, thank you for checking in and keeping Mac's bone marrow in your prayers. We are forever grateful to you!