Tis The Season 2015

Can't believe it has been a month since I blogged; that speaks to the time of year it is! November proceeded as planned. Ron has stayed pretty much the same, so we were able to travel to Virginia for Thanksgiving. The weather cooperated, and we stayed at Matt and Kate's in Springfield. Niccole and Cole came for Wednesday and Thursday; they live about an hour away in Fredericksburg. So fun to see those 4 grandchildren have a good time together. They are full of energy and the parents and kids ran as a team in the D.C. Turkey Trot. Mike, Niccole's significant other, spent Thanksgiving with all of us, too. Truly so very much for us to be thankful for!
Our Christmas with Cale and Jess's family will be in BG. We're planning on spending the majority of the next 3 months in Ohio. So far so good; the weather has been mild. This was Ann Arbor week. We spent most of 3 days "up there" as Ron had blood work, two ECP treatments, had more eyedrops made from his blood, a transplant doctor appointment, and 6 immunizations. When you have a bone marrow transplant all of your protection from your childhood immunizations is wiped out, so Ron has had to have all childhood and adult immunizations repeated; the last round was this week. After driving to and from Virginia last week and back and forth to U of M this week, I have had my fill of driving! Ron has not been able to drive for over 3 years.
When Ron had his doctor appointment, I asked about tapering part of his treatment for what is basically the fight between the blood products made by his new bone marrow and his body. This is called graft vs host disease and can resolve early on or even years after a transplant. The GVHD is what has affected his skin and lungs the most. In March he will transition to ECP treatments every 6 weeks from monthly. He has had ECP treatments (127) for 3 years now, having started with weekly ECP appointments. He has 2 treatments on back to back days each week of treatment. Besides ECP, he takes prednisone daily. That will not be tapered. 10mg. His variety of antibiotic, antiviral, antifungal, and lung treatment is unchanged. SO, we have one more day in AA this month because Ron is due for his next immunity infusion. His new bone marrow does a pretty good job of making platelets and red blood cells, but did not recover to produce adequate antibodies to fight infection. The immunity infusion IVIG picks up the slack.
The pictures below show recent activities.