Moving on...

There will be a new stage of treatment for Ron after May. He will have two more extracorporeal Photopheresis, ECP, treatments in early June, and this treatment will end. So Ron will have his central line removed. He will have had a Neostar almost 4 years of the almost 5 years since his transplant. He has had a neostar during his ECP regimen the past 3.4 years. 137 treatments after June's. Hopefully, his chronic GVHD symptoms will not return. What a mixture of excitement and nervousness I am feeling about this change.
Ron's new bone marrow is producing blood cells in or nearly in the normal range. The only significant deficiency is in his immunity products, so he will continue to have immunity infusions. He is progressing to having those infusions 2 months apart. (From monthly infusions for a looong time) There are really no improvements in his cognitive and physical changes. Ron continues to do odd things like tear napkins up into small sections, label everything, use highlighters and white out excessively, and shave off his eyebrows, etc.....all harmless. He uses a cane some if I am holding his other arm, walks slowly with his walker, and we use his wheelchair if it is a situation that requires some distance to cover. I do feel like we are in a stable routine.
The wound center here in Bowling Green is seeing Ron to help us get his leg wound healed from his fall out of bed in March. They are so thorough and professional...very impressed! Somehow he broke the brake handle off his walker when he fell out of bed during a bad dream. That is probably how he gouged his leg.
We plan to spend more time at the lake house over the warm months. So lucky to have two homes that we love and enjoy!

The Donor Revealed!

So very exciting this week to receive email and a picture of Ron's donor from Sweden!! It feels like the circle is completed with having this information. It might be my imagination, but I think there is a resemblance of him at age 50 (now) and Ron when he was 50. Amazingly, when Stefan registered in the Tobias Registry of Sweden, he was a college student over 25 years ago. Perhaps you remember that Ron had no matches in the United States, so the world registry was searched for a match. There were 3. One was considered "too old", one was not available, and Stefan immediately agreed to be Ron's donor. To harvest stem cells from the blood, a series of injections are given over a period of days to boost the number of cells. Stefan had a procedure to harvest these cells, and the infusion was flown from Sweden to Detroit, then traveled to the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor. The transplant infusion looked very much like a blood transfusion does. We are so grateful that Stefan joined the registry and then agreed to be a donor without hesitation.