February 6, 2009

Tom Brief

The surgeon was not able to biopsy the growth on Tom's hand today. They were not able to control the bleeding. They will try again on Wednesday morning after his Tuesday blood transfusion if it hasn't healed.

Tim and Jeff went to City of Hope to surrender their blood yesterday and Marc and Mike went today. Steve is planning to go on Tuesday and potentially let Dave's blood hitch a ride from Santa Maria with him. We have great hope that one or more of the boys will be a match. If they are not a match the process of searching the international donor registry takes several months. Given the state of Tom's immune system that would be a significant concern to the doctor and, of course to us.

For now we're making every effort we can to keep Tom's environment sterile. In terms of silver linings: We will buy a portable dishwasher this weekend to ensure that all of Tom's eating utensils are sterilized. We've never minded much not having one, but it'll be nice to have help with the dishes. I'm also looking forward to getting Tom a big comfy recliner chair, so he can be more comfortable throughout the day.

Also, I thought I'd share the February 2009 enewsletter form the Aplastic Anemia & MDS International Foundation. I've found this foundation to have useful information. They snail mailed me a packet that has been helpful, as well. They have some interesting information about advocacy, research studies, legislation, fundraising and public awareness in this months newsletter: http://www.industrymailout.com/Industry/View.aspx?id=134638&p=534b. Particularly, I think it's kind of cute that Global Rare Disease Day is always the last day of February. Clever. I plan to keep them at the top of our list of organizations to which we donate.

In just-this-minute-news: Tom and Gabriel are fine, though they were just side swiped by another car. Luckily the car was hit behind the driver's seat where neither of them were sitting. Actually it was where I would have been sitting if I had been with them. Neither is injured at all and Gabriel was not frightened by the incident, according to Tom. The way I see it, statistically speaking, Tom's likelihood of being in another car accident (something that has worried me ever since his platelets started to drop) has just gone down.

Thanks, all, for your agape love, The HP DuBranskys