September 4, 2013

Casey got home last week. We went up to our cabin in Sullivan County for Labor Day weekend. The weather was beautiful, great friends joined us, and the dogs got to swim, hike and run around in the mountains. We had a really good weekend. Unfortunately, Gary's Aunt Betty passed away on Saturday. I will really miss her and our phone chats that sometimes lasted over an hour. You always got the truth from Aunt Betty, she was never malicious or mean, just called it like she saw it. That is what I will miss most of all.

Casey met with the transplant team last week. They are talking about doing another transplant, but do not know what type they will do. Stevie is being tested again to see if she could be a donor. Since he has had a couple of transplants already, they are worried about the stress it would put on his organs to put him through another one. At this point, Casey has been transplanted with cord blood from France and from Duke, which did not take. Then he was transplanted with a young man who was an 8 out of 10 match. That one did not take, so they started the process for another transplant. During the preparation, something kicked in and he had a bad case of graft vs host disease, which actually allowed his body to accept the donor's cells. At this point, Casey has more DNA than CSI has in their labs. He went through having all of his baby vaccinations all over again. The doctors in Houston feel his sister would be a better match than an 8 out of 10. Stevie gladly got all of her blood work done. Now, we just wait to find out what happens next. The doctors in Houston are consulting his doctor from Hershey to come up with a plan. I love the fact that there are no egos involved and they work together.

Gary and Casey will head back to Houston on September 11th. Meanwhile, we will try to spend as much time with Casey as we can.