Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas! Katelyn absolutely loved opening gifts, she had a blast. It took awhile, but that's how kids are. Todd and I were very happy to be spending the day with our little family. There were a lot of people in this unit, and everyone seemed do do well and take the day in as well as they could. One of the department directors brought lunch, as the cafeteria didn't serve anything special, so it was a nice change in the food department. Katelyn is on a low bacteria diet, so she can only eat food that is ordered through room service. We can't wait for her to be able to eat other foods again. Hopefully she will still have the same appreciation and openness for food that she had before we came to the hospital.

Katelyn did incredibly well through the last round of chemo. We kept her with constante anti-nausea medicine to avoid any nausea or lack of appetite. She ate like a champ and had no loss in energy. You would never had known she was having chemo at the time. People are incredibly impressed and happy to see how well she is handling everything. Todd and I are very grateful for her energy. We are waiting for her ANC to come up so we can test her bone marrow again, and start, what we hope will be her last round of chemo. We hope this round has put her in complete remission. If she is in remission we need prayers that she stay in remission FOREVER! The doctor says a lot of times if a child stays in remission for five years, she could be considered recovered or cured. That's what we're going for! They also say that often times if she was going to relapse she would do it in the first three years. We don't want that.

Since Kate respoded so well to the first round of chemo, and if the second is as successful, the doctor says she will have the same recovery chances as any other child with AML. Although Kate has 6 bone marrow matches already we may hold off on the stem cell transplant, unless the new baby is a match. I don't know all the specifics, but with an unrelated donor there is a high risk of graft vs. host complications. This means that there are high chances that Kate's body will reject the transplant. . If the new baby is a match (there is a 1/4 chance) the chances of graft. vs. host. is significantly less. There are also other major side effects to the chemo that comes with the stem cell transplant. The heavy chemo she would receive would diminish the possibility of her ever having children. It would kill all of her eggs. This breaks my heart. If the new baby is a match, we have to go ahead with the transplant as it is still her best chance of completely recovering from this disease, and her health is the most important thing. We talked to the doctor about options as far as possibly extracting and storing some of her eggs for the future. Apparently there isn't a technology that stores eggs for a long period of time. The only time that eggs are extracted they are immediately fertilized. We obviously wouldn't want to fertilize our 18 month old's eggs yet. It is also an invasive surgery. Anyway, it's not an option. We will cross that bridge when we come to it.

That's all we know for now. Right now we're just hanging at the hospital until her ANC is high enough to move on to the next step. Still not allowed visitors, which is difficult. Todd and I are staying busy and positive. I'm feeling well and the baby moves around a lot. We can't believe there are only 2.5 months left before our new arrival.

We are talking more about our living situation and hope to be in something in February. We think being in the city will be more beneficial for us. Todd will, hopefully, be working in a hospital early next year, and Katelyn will need regular clinic visits here at Children's Hospital. Although we may be spending more on rent, we will be spending less on gas and time away from home.

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers during this time. We are incredibly appreciative. Merry Christmas!

Love, Todd & Krystal