First Update

After a whirlwind 3 days, we find ourselves at St. Jude’s Research Hospital in Memphis. Mac (11) has been diagnosed with severe Aplastic Anemia. This is not leukemia, but it is a serious disease where his bone marrow is failing to produce all three types of blood cells he needs. We arrived at St. Judes Wednesday morning (at 2am). They did the bone marrow aspiration Thursday and we got the results today. We have the weekend off for some R & R. Monday, Mo & I have to go get some bloodwork done and Mac has to have his checked. He will have his checked @ every 4 days to keep track of his numbers. There are still some lab results that need to be received so we have a 10 - 14 day window of maintaining the status quo. Unlike Leukemia, this a slow wait & watch program. After all results have been processed, they'll come up with a plan. A) Bone Marrow Transplant (if Peter or Annie are exact matches) along with drug treatment or B) Drug treatment only for about a year and if not working, go to a BMT that is not an exact match. We're looking at 1 1/2 years of on & off treatments at various times. I'm praying one of the kids match b/c that seems like it provides the best outlook.

We are staying at the Grizzly Hotel for the next few days but will probably move to the longer term apartments next week.

Mac is in good spirits and he told me tonight, “is it kind of weird that I’ve been real healthy for 11 years and now I have this disease?” I said “yes, but…” and he finished my sentence with “that’s life, right?” That pretty much sums it up!