It’s a long way to Cincinnati and back. JT was great, riding like a champ and proud of himself for sleeping in his own hotel bed.

And it was a good hospital visit, short for the Clinic. His labs are good. The immune studies they drew last week show improvement from the last time they were sent. As the doctors wean down the Cyclosporine, his own immune system is kicking in right on schedule. Some of the cells are present but not working, others are functioning at a very low level, but it all looks like the transplant is on its slow but steady way to the success we’ve hoped and prayed for.

JT chewed up a bite of pizza for the speech therapist before spitting it out – that may seem like a small thing but it’s a huge leap from where he’s been before. Jodi and I plan to be more intentional about working at this therapy at home too.

His blood counts looked okay except for low hemoglobin. This is disappointing because it was up last week for the first time in forever. They’ve given him a prescription for iron drops and we hope that helps. They discontinued his VFend medicine, so slowly but surely he’s tapering down from his buffet of oral meds too.

The D is the same. He’s not gaining weight but he hasn’t lost significantly either (down to 15.8 kg from 15.9 last week). They keep telling us that it will go away. I keep believing that they’re right even though they’ve been saying this since April.

JT seemed particularly concerned to know for sure that we were coming back to our “new home in Grove City.” He told Dr. Filipovich “I like our new home a lot” and kept asking me to make sure we were going back to GC and not the Cincinnati apartment. When we finally got here tonight he simply ran in circles around the upstairs laughing wildly. It’s so great to see him so happy.

We got strict orders to take JT and meet with the head of the Bone Marrow Transplant department at Pittsburgh Children’s ASAP, like tomorrow or Friday if at all possible. So that’s in the works. We head back to Cincinnati next week but after than we may get the okay to come every other week…that would be a little easier to manage.

Please keep praying, esp. for his hemoglobin counts to improve and for relief from the never-ending D. Thank you.