Thing One: Caemon is off of his steroids and as a result was so much more himself today. He smiled. He laughed. We danced to his favorite music. We played. His Aunt Roni brought him a bag full of musical instruments, and we played them. It was a lot of fun. Tomorrow our goal is to make him a little kitchen.
Thing Two: Caemon finished his first round of IV chemo. He was on a five-day nonstop infusion that ended tonight. Tomorrow, he will be able to walk around the room without any tubes attached to him. This is why we need to make him a little kitchen (and if you know him, you know this boy needs to cook).
Thing Three: The undeveloped white blood cells called blasts–those that are associated with leukemia–are declining at a very rapid rate with this recent round of chemo. We will find out as the steroid clears from his system how his other blood counts are responding. We need to see his overall white counts come down quite a bit still.
Thing Four: This is the big thing. We have gotten a preliminary report from the Bone Marrow Transplant Team, and they tell us that they have found five donors who are already a good match (they match in 8 out of 8 HLA markers) for Caemon. This is a great sign for now. I think they now examine these donors to see if any of them are an even closer match (10 out of 10 matched HLA markers). Ultimately, though, they don’t think it’s going to be too difficult to find someone who is just right. We just have to hope that the match they find is also willing to be a donor.
We have certainly been pleased with all of this today, and it helps to have our spirits lifted, as we also learned today we’re likely to be here another three weeks. So long as these next three weeks include plenty of forward momentum, I think we’ll be just fine.
C is for Crocodile 