At today's treatment, Todd ended up needing a blood transfusion as his hemoglobin had dropped to 8.1. He has been very tired, so I hope this will help with his energy level.
The other counts were down also. Whites were at 1.28 or 1,280. Low white counts can make him more Susceptible to infections. His platelets were high enough not need a transfusion, but they too continue to drop: 22,000.
We are so grateful that we can be home next week. Driving up and back to Cleveland two times per week is getting tiresome. We have to get up at 5:00 am to get to his appointment on time. But still, this is better than staying in Cleveland all week.
We have thought about what went wrong with the transplant: Why it didn't wor.k. Todd thinks they didn't give him enough chemotherapy to wipe out his bone marrow, but I think the problem lies in the use and application of the immunosuppressants. They chose to suppress his brother's donor marrow so he wouldn't get a bad case of Graft versus Host Disease, but I wonder why they didn't suppress Todd's bone marrow and let his donor marrow grow and engraft unsuppressed. I guess this was the professional decision of the doctor who is the specialist in this area.
Whatever contributed to the failure of the transplant (we may never know), our eldest daughter in her wisdom told us: Don't regret the decision to do the transplant. It was the only curative treatment and we had to try it. The odds were in our favor. I have taken comfort in this truth. We can't change the past or second guess the decision to transplant. We can only move forward taking life day by day and make the best decisions based on where we are that day.
Thanks for your support and prayers. We still believe God can perform a miracle in Todd.
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