Month: January 2021

Things aren't going great for Kendall right now. He has had a fever for the past four days, and last night his fever spiked to 106.3. He also has a rash that has been getting worse, terrible nausea (can't eat), and at one point he lost consciousness and had a fall. Kendall's doctor thinks that his body is fighting against the transplant, so today (Sunday) they gave…

Meal Train will only let me include one picture with each post, but I thought this one was pretty cool too of the chest X-ray.

The good news is Kendall doesn't appear to have any new symptoms. And he was able to keep down a smoothie earlier today. He still has a fever that hasn't broken and he really doesn't feel great, but the fever is a little lower right now. The chest X-ray didn't show anything new, so that was reassuring. And for your viewing enjoyment, here is a picture of…

The nurses sang Happy Birthday to Kendall and brought him a balloon and various donated gifts (a blanket, pillow case, book, journal, and a hat) to celebrate his "new birth" Day 0 today. I think I have mentioned this before, but the rest of his life will count up from this day (tomorrow is Day +1, and so forth). January 28th will forever be the anniversary of…

That red line is the stem cells feeding in to Kendall's central line in his chest. You can see that he's almost done. We learned that the doctors were able to get enough stem cells during the donor process that they could freeze an entirely separate dose. If this transplant doesn't take for some reason, then they will be able to act quickly to do another transplant.…

Kendall is in the middle of his transplant right now, and things seem to be going smoothly so far. His vitals have stayed good, and all he has to do is relax in bed. Compared to many of the treatments and procedures Kendall has had to undergo the past few months, today has actually felt relatively easy for him. He's very tired, but otherwise feels fine.

Six sessions of TBI (Total Body Irradiation) has been brutal for Kendall, but he did finish his last (hopefully forever) treatment today. He has to stand during the each entire procedure, which is difficult when you feel so weak and nauseous. Kendall did get a break today in the middle of his treatment, though, when there was a power outage that affected all of Salt Lake valley.…

And Kendall is successfully admitted! This time around Kendall's room is decorated with quite a few more laminated photos, signs, and hand-drawn pictures than his previous hospitalizations (including one our youngest drew him of "a magical blue dog named DOGter Strange with healing powers that actually look different colored flowers and [she doesn't] know how they will help Dad but they will"). I was able to visit…

Things are still moving forward for Kendall to be hospitalized tomorrow for his bone marrow transplant prep, including those six sessions of total body radiation (which have required a surprising amount of procedures beforehand to get ready for). If everything goes according to plan, Kendall's actual transplant should happen next Thursday. Kendall had a PET scan this week and we just got the results today. I (thankfully)…

Here are the medical highlights from the week: -On Monday Kendall had another IVIG treatment. This time he received it all at once, rather than being spread out over four days. Unfortunately, he did have a reaction to it this time. Nothing that ended up being too serious, but it did get awfully busy in that room for a while. It made for a long day as…