transplant update

We have returned home from a weekend away visiting our friends, who moved away from Lynn to direct a camp for girls...what a beautiful and fun Memorial Day weekend we had with them! It was so refreshing to leave the city behind for a weekend and work and play in acres of woods and grass.

I have been anxious to post all weekend and to share some AMAZING news. On Friday afternoon, Orilus' transplant fellow called with the final results of the tests from our two-year anniversary appointment at Jimmy Fund. In his words, Orilus is "free not only from sickle cell, but from all its effects."

The tests showed:
* that Orilus is making 100% of Jackson's blood
* that Orilus' body has fully adadpted to Jackson's blood, including taking on an allergy that Jackson had and becoming all sickle cell trait, and not diseased, blood
* that Orilus' previously-shriveled and non-functioning spleen has regenerated! The doctors who ran the test wrote the report not knowing that the spleen had barely existing previously, and noted that it was normal, and footnoted just one very small place that appears not to be functioning fully. WOW.

As Orilus' doctor commented, we are DONE with sickle cell disease, and DONE with transplant entirely. He recounted all the things that have healed in Orilus' body since transplant...a brain occlusion, an enlarged heart, a messed-up liver, a shriveled spleen, ongoing pain crises, a need for constant antibiotic, an automatic visit to the ER for fever...and ALL of these things are resolved. Orilus is medicine-free, pain-free, and WELL.

Friends, I can't really explain how this is truly more than we could ever have asked or imagined (as the Apostle Paul writes). Surely God has done so much for us! We had hoped that the sickle cell would be gone, but were cautioned that Orilus' organs were probably permanently damaged, and that transplant could prevent further damage, but not necessarily "heal" what was already done. And so this is MIRACULOUS news. Better than the doctor's anticipated, and WAY more than they even encouraged us to hope. Amazing.

Many of you may recall what a comfort Psalm 40 was to me during our long transplant year; it hung in our hospital room, and here at home. While for much of that time, the verses on being in NEED were most applicable, now verse 5 resonates:

5 Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.

Thanks to a God of wonders.