Posts by Suzanne Sawyer-Espinoza

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…

Not everyone reading these posts knows me very well, so what you might not already realize is that I. like. order. Like a lot. Organization. Schedules. Predictability. Above all else, control (I'm a little embarrassed to admit that). Seriously, back to school has always been my favorite time of year because I get to put new systems and schedules in place (labeled and organized bins make me…

Do you pick a word to focus on or have as a sort of theme for each new year? I was first introduced to this idea a few years ago, and I've enjoyed the annual process of thoughtfully choosing what I want to focus on for the next year. This year, however, I have really struggled with finding a word that felt right. Lofty, noble words (like…

Still no real answers. No donor yet. I've had several people ask me if they could be tested to be a potential donor. My answer is always that definitely, please sign up to be a bone marrow donor! We're certainly not the only ones looking to have that life-saving procedure done and who is unable to find a related full match. And being a donor is really…