9-1-16

Today is a GREAT day. Drew's counts are coming back up!! We saw some movement yesterday in the numbers, and held our breath as we waited to see if today we'd see more movement in the right direction, and we did!! His neutrophils, the number that needs to be over 500, is at 330 today! Praise the Lord. He is beginning to engraft. And you can see it in Drew. We successfully got the PICC line placed yesterday, so getting rid of those IVs was a big relief. He slept much better last night (good for me too!), and has more energy today. He still is far from 100%. He's pretty wobbly on his feet after being in bed for a week. He's still experiencing some pain and is a bit grouchy still, but his smile is back. Which brings tears to my eyes. How much I missed you Drew!!

Going forward in the next few days, first his numbers need to keep rising, above 500 for at least 3 days before we can leave. We will begin weaning him off the pain meds tomorrow, and slowly dropping some other medications that were keeping him comfortable. The feeding tube will go back in tomorrow, and we'll begin increasing the feeding rate while backing off the TPN. Infection wise, they want him to be on both antibiotics until Sept 10th. So whether we go home with IV antibiotics and the PICC line, or they can switch him to oral antibiotics the last few days of that course and lose the PICC line before we go home will be next week's decision. Either way, our usual Hickman central line will go back in before radiation, which may start in just a couple weeks.

I want to thank everyone for their prayers, thoughts, and encouragement. Once again, I got to the point of cracking, of crumbling under the weight of this all, and then God rescued us. I wonder if I was really waiting on Him to answer my prayers of a turn around for Drew, or if He, in fact, was waiting on me. God taught me last fall from Isaiah, that sometimes He waits on us before showing us His compassion (Isaiah 30:18). Was He waiting on me to give it all to Him, to rely totally on His power and not my own to get through? Maybe. Someday I may know. But for now, count me reminded that our strength comes from no one besides God, and all glory and honor to Him for bringing Drew back to us, not only from this transplant, but since January when we started to battle this beast that is Neuroblastoma!