Step by step

Annie had another positive appointment yesterday.  All blood counts are normal except for her hemoglobin and that went up from 10.0 to 10.6.  Normal for that will begin at 12.2.  Her kidney functions have all stayed normal so now we don't need to see the nephrologist any more.  Her visits have been extended to every three weeks and she can get a flu shot.  The rest of her immunizations are scheduled for November.  This is an exciting procedure were a group of nurses surround her and all stick her at once.  She has done it once before and it does seem to be the way to go although it looks absurd.  Annie also gained a pound which is much needed.  She has a full plate of activities and goes merrily through her day which has helped build back her appetite.  We feel like a family of wood-peckers because we "knock on wood" all day long for the miracle of each normal day she gets.  Update in three weeks.

Home run

While it sure seemed like we had a perfect storm of bad luck with Annie's illness and all the dominoes that fell from there, today continued our happy progression of good luck.  First was the news that her kidney ultrasound from today showed all was well there.  Next we learned of continued progress with the blood counts.   Whites and platelets still percolating in the normal range and hemoglobin stepping up again to get to 10.0 (normal starts at 12.2).  Her kidney markers that were causing concern dropped almost by half and put her solidly in the normal range.  Unexpected great news.  And finally we learned that her follow-up engraphment test came back with 100% engraphment.  She is now entirely someone else immunologically speaking...weird, weird thought.  This is not to be taken lightly as many aplastic patients never reach this point and some can unfortunately slip backwards.

Annie chugs steadily through her days without pause and has a nice sprinkling of hair coming in.  Tom takes a picture of her every few days so we can make a time-lapse movie of her hair coming in some day.  Life being what it is there are still things to work on.  She's super skinny but at least didn't lose weight between last visit and today's.  The doctor has noted that the road back to physical strength is a far longer one than the time it took for the body to weaken.  She also has very high ferritin levels due to all the blood transfusions.  However when she was last checked for iron overload a year ago the doctor was shocked by the lack of damage compared to what is usually seen.  Hopefully that will give her a leg up but we'll know better in a few weeks as she'll have a full iron panel done at the next appointment in two weeks.  Finally, she has a few rashes that have popped up.  No one is ringing any alarm bells yet but we're keeping an eye on them.  Still, compared to where we've been, we're feeling nothing but gratitude and awe.