Day 70

The doctors have now officially diagnosed John with acute graft versus host disease. The treatment began an hour after the diagnosis was made. He will be on a course of steroid which will calm the battle down that has caused John's sickness. He will then be tapered off them as his body grows stronger. I wish I could explain that better but I am not a doctor lol
It's been a tough 3 weeks but it's nice to think John may be home in a week.
We are unsure at this point how this set back will effect the overall success of the transplant. Only time will tell. For today we are pleased to have some news.

Day 66

Thank you so much for all your prayers and encouragement during what has been a challenging 3 weeks. The last update I mentioned that John was sick. The next day we took him to ER because he began to run a fever. Since them he has been in the transplant ward at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston. They have been doing many tests and many diagnosis ideas have been presented and then proved to be incorrect. Although his fevers are down and he is not vomiting, he still have extreme abdominal pain and is passing blood. They have him being given nutrition through a pick line and he has not eaten all week.

On a positive note the Chimerism test showed that the bone marrow graft has taken! A piece of good news that tended to get buried with John being so sick but one that has encouraged us greatly. We praise God that he has begun his healing.

One thought for John's current sickness was graft versus host disease, which would be the graft cells attacking John (more specifically the donor's T cells). However when they repeated the chimerism test earlier this week and it showed a slight decrease in Ian's cells. They would expect to see an increase if it was graft versus host. This is potentially very scary as John's immune problems center around his T cell deficiency so we are praying and are asking you to pray along side us that Ian would begin to make more T cells and that John would in turn have normal levels.

Right now Doctors are testing  for micobacteria and more exotic infections which John is presupposed to because of his immune problems.

I wish I could tell you more but we await healing.
We trust in God above all, he is our doctor and healer. Please pray for us. This has been a scary and emotional time. I (Amanda) miss John terribly and fear the future but know God has something amazing up his divine sleeves lol :)