Wed, 28 Jan 2004

Free

Hey everybody. It's Wednesday afternoon and we have a great update from Jade's BMT appt yesterday morning.

All his blood work came back within acceptable ranges and they informed him he could go down to radiology and have the line taken out of his chest. The procedure should take ten to fifteen minutes but unfortunately it was every bit of 45 minutes for Jade. It didn't go very smoothly and he's fairly sore but ....... we're thrilled to have it out! He's free! The BMT team is confident that Jade is doing well enough that the odds of him needing to be hospitalized in the near future are minimal.

No more sterile dressing changes, flushing the lines twice a week or other weekly maintainence care for the line. Jade has lived with a line in his chest since the 4th of April last year. He had that original line (double lumen) removed and this one (triple lumen large enough for the apheresis - bone marrow harvesting and transplant) put in the same day in June to prepare for the transplant process. What a wonderful milestone!

Jade is doing well all in all. He is quite optimistic about the future and feels very fortunate. We seem to talk constantly about how blessed we are. I don't know if we can ever express enough gratitude. As we get closer to starting the "one year anniversaries" which lie ahead in the coming months, we comment on how much worse this past year could have been. Thank you for your friendship, support and compassion. Your hope has sustained us. Thank you!

Jade's next BMT appt is in two weeks so we'll keep you posted. Take care and have a Happy Groundhog's Day next week!

Much love...................Tanya and co.