Sun, 02 Nov 2003

Day 56

Hey there. It's a cold, snowy Sunday morning and I'm glad we don't have anything really going on so we can hang out inside, be warm and relax today.

Jade's appt was on Fri at the BMT clinic (Garrett and I went with him - they all wanted to see him in his costume.) Overall the check-up went well. His counts are all normal/acceptable and they are starting to taper him off the final immune suppression drug. For the next week to ten days he's at 100 mgs of cyclosporine and then it will drop another 20%. with this schedule, he'll be off all of it by the first week of December.

They did do a chymerism check to see the ratio of Jared to Jade (they are hoping for 80% to 20%) but we won't have results back from that for another five to seven days. Jade still has the skin rash and faint traces of it in his mouth but so far that's the only symptoms of graft vs host disease - which is fine with us. They told him he needs to stay hydrated or they'll start him on IV fluids again to help his kidneys. Jade's next appt is on Fri Nov 7th so we'll update you then with the latest.

Hope trick or treating was successful for everyone and that you're ready for the full swing of the holidays soon! Garrett loves hearing the "gobble gobble" from the turkey decorations (I would be the one providing the sound effects.) Thanks for your prayers, hope and encouragement. We feel blessed in so many ways. Take care and we'll let you know the results when we find out!

Love.................Tanya and co.