October 12, 2006

Hi everyone,

Finally some good news to report. Today we got the results of last Thursday's Bone Marrow test. They have successfully grafted the umbilical cord blood to her bone marrow. Her white blood count is 1,700. 7,000 is normal. She is on her way to recovery!

Last Saturday her triple port in her chest split and blood was spurting out, quite frightening. They clamped it shut and accessed her single port in her chest. This meant the only I.V. medicine, anti rejection drug, was going into her mediport, whereas she had three lines going simultaneously with other helpful drugs. As it was Saturday, they called in a surgeon to remove the broken triple port and place a new one on her other side. They were worried as her white blood counts were low for operating. But we didn't have a choice. She was stable after the procedure and on Tuesday her counts miraculously moved up to 1000! Still feeling very ill and hurting from this procedure, we thought she was probably going to have to stay another month, very depressing. Then Wednesday came and we had all this good news.

Now that her white blood cells are coming up , her body will start to repair itself. She has not eaten and has been sleeping most of the time. They will not release her until she eats and can move around better. So we have some more recovery time to spend here.

When she is released, she has to come back to the hospital frequently for her transfusions and I.V. medicines. So please continue to give blood and platelets. We couldn't have done this without you!

Thank you for your continued prayers.

Fondly,

Lindsey, Barbara & David