Good News from Hospital Visit Today

Today was Andrew's four week blood count and doctor appointment in Ann Arbor. His blood count numbers were the best they have been in a long time. His neutrophil count was 2400, white blood cell count was 4.2, and platelet level was 248,000, all the highest numbers since he got off the neupogen injections last summer. The doctors reduced his medication doseage again, from .8mL in the morning and .9mL in the evening to .8mL twice a day.

The doctors also decided to change Andrew's appointment schedule going forward. Instead of the blood count every two weeks at Beaumont and doctor's appointment evry four weeks to determine whether to reduce his medication, we will now go to Beaumont every three weeks and U of M every six weeks. After the three week blood draw at Beaumont, we will now talk to the doctors over the phone and decide whether to reduce his medication without a physical appointment. The end result is that we now have blood draws every three weeks instead of two, and the opportunity to reduce his medication every three weeks instead of four, both positives for us.

The doctors also changed the way they will be weening Andrew off of his cyclosporine medication going forward. Before, they we trying to reduce both of his daily doseages .1mL each time. Now they feel, and studies and his blood counts so far seem to suggest, that weening him more slowly will help his counts stabilize short term and be more beneficial to him long term. So they have decided that they will only reduce one of his two doseages .1mL each time, in essence doubling the amount of time to ween him off. It seems to have worked out well this last time.

The last major positive decision the doctors made today was to start setting Andrew up for removing the port and central line he had surgically installed when we were in the hospital last spring. It doesn't look like it will be very necessary going forward. If his blood count levels are still up at his draw in three weeks, we will set an appointment for late May to have the port removed. That will give him time to heal before we leave for Disney World June 10, and get rid of the bump on his chest for the summer.

One Year and Counting

It was one year ago today that we first took Andrew to the pediatrician for a cold he had. They noticed that his blood counts were low, which set off the series of events that led to his diagnosis of aplastic anemia and the subsequent immunosuppressive therapy that he is still in the process of. In that year, he spent ten days at Mott Children's Hospital, has had dozens of platelet and blood transfusions, several emergency room trips, and a roller coaster ride of blood count numbers from critically low to completely normal.

At this point, Andrew is in the process of being weened off of the medications he is taking. The doctors are encouraged with where his blood count numbers are at. He has another appointment this Friday, and hopefully his numbers have steadied enough to where they can reduce his medication yet again. He has not had a blood count in three weeks, so we have no idea where they will be at on Friday. He has been generally healthy with no colds to speak of the past few weeks, so hopefully the counts will be high.

Erin and I would like to thank everyone who has supported Andrew, and our entire family, over the course of the past year. The amount of help we have received still amazes us, and it has made a difficult situation much easier to deal with. Hopefully one year from now Andrew will be done with the medication and considered recovered from this.