Prayer Report: Lord's Day 17

     I am writing this report on Saturday evening July 28. He is weary and tired but mostly in good spirits. He has made great use of rubber snakes, spiders, and roaches all week but that is a story for another day. The doctors are very pleased with all of Andrew's test results and his over all condition at this point. This has been a big week for Andrew. He completed the most aggressive rounds of chemo therapy he has taken to date. He had a rest day on Tuesday from any treatment and then Wednesday he began his new life. July 25, 2018 became Andrew's transplant birthday or anniversary. We haven't quite decided how we will refer to the day. The transplant went well without any complications. However, starting Thursday afternoon the typical and expected side effects began to develop. He is suffering from the sores that can develop due to excessive mucus. He stopped being able to swallow due to the pain. Thus, he wasn't able to take his medicine nor eat properly. He is now on a pain pump and a feeding tube was inserted Friday evening. He is doing much better now considering the circumstances. He is suffering right now more than he has suffered at any previous time during his four years of treatment but these are very much normal parts of the transplant process. He is medically doing very well at this point.
Prayer Needs:
1) Endurance
2) Protection from Infection. He is in a period of High Risk
3) The grafting of the new bone marrow
4) The recovery of the bone marrow donor

                                                    (He received two bags of bone marrow)

     He was in great spirits and we enjoyed a transplant eve and day with great fellowship between ourselves and our BMT Unit and 3C family. Andrew's new caregivers have given care to him worthy of their own family. Our time of transplant was a time of great joy as well. We were surrounded by the people who have cared for Andrew from the very beginning. They have all "graduated" to new roles since we first met them all back in June and July of 2014. We are thankful now that we "trained" them so well. We truly consider it a great blessing and assurance of God to have the team in place that we have been given. The weekend has come upon us and we had Andrew's first chemo nurse from June 2014 to be on duty tis weekend to give him his special meds. We even had his doctor who ushered us through the failure of his initial treatment back in that summer of 2014. I call her my "calmer" and yes we (or at least me)  do nick-name just about all of our doctors and nurses.  I share this extra information to make the point that since Andrew's relapse in April we have never been without the same people who have cared for Andrew from the very first month of his diagnosis in 2014 till now. If you know anything about hospital life, the you know that it doesn't just happen that way normally. We praise God for all of his care. We miss our girls dearly. He is not even halfway through his initial 30 days. He will be on Day 4 this Lord's Day.