Still Being Smelted

I am woefully behind on posting on here, so bear with me as I try to bring everyone up to speed. First off, aren't those paper cranes beautiful? Our son's fifth grade class (or at least the class he attended before he had to switch to eSchool) has been making 1,000 paper cranes since September, and Darren's teacher delivered them to us last week. I can only…

Monday was physically a very tiring day. After getting up at 4:20 in the morning so we could get to Kendall's very early cervical MRI, we ended up being gone at the hospital for 15 hours. Long hospital days are hard, not just for Kendall and me but for our kids. Having Grandma Jeanne home with the kids (and our other Grandma stopping by to help with…

We did get the results of the donor matching tests for Kendall's siblings. We were told that there is a 1:4 chance that a full-blood sibling will be a match. Kendall had five siblings who were tested. None of them were complete matches, but three of his siblings were half matches (5/10 markers matching). They then went to the Universal Donor Bank, where they said Kendall had…

And for your next installment of "Everything with Kendall changes day to day, sometimes hour by hour, from what we were expecting," Kendall was NOT admitted to the hospital yesterday. He had a long day at the hospital (well, actually two hospitals) getting yet another a COVID test (negative), a pulmonary function test (lung capacity within normal levels), labs (hemoglobin low so will be getting another blood…

This door is in my master bedroom, and every time I walk in or when I wake up in the morning, I immediately see it covered with the many cards I've received in just over three months. (Has it really only been a bit over three months?!?! And if you don't see yours there, Kendall has many of the ones he has received, and I have a…

Thus far I have mostly been posting about Kendall and how he's doing, but if you'll indulge me I'd like to share a little about myself in this post. I'm not even sure how many read these updates, but I know that many are people who might not know me or whom I have not been in close contact with for the past few years. I've struggled…

After what felt like a series of miracles, Kendall was able to come home Saturday evening. It has been so so good to finally have him home. He's already eating better, and so far has kept everything down despite continuing nausea. I've been working on outfitting the house with various adaptive devices Kendall needs to help him navigate our spaces safely (and reinforcing that while I have…

Isn't the sheer quantity of these medications impressive? That picture does not include the medicines that Kendall took with him to the hospital (some of them have needed to be specially mailed to us because they don't carry them at Huntsman), or the new ones he has been taking at the hospital (i.e. anti-fungal medicine to treat a possible case of fungal pneumonia, several antibiotics, etc.). And…

No question that this has been the hardest week so far of this experience, both physically and emotionally. It's been really rough. Kendall has been very, very sick, and there have been moments when I wondered if he would be coming home from this hospitalization. The doctors have been stumped as to why so many things have been going wrong and shutting down with his body. We…

And this is what a hospital visit from your wife has to look like when the doctors and nurses think you (Kendall) might have some yet unknown infectious disease because of all the severe symptoms you (Kendall) are having. At least the fever dropped to 100.8 today! And continuing to feel so very grateful that I am still allowed to visit (that policy has already changed for…