Bone Marrow Aspiration

Not much new to report. On Wednesday Sebastian had the 1st of 5 bone marrow aspirations (post gene therapy) that will be required over the next 3 years. Everything went smoothly and he recovered quickly, with only minor irritability from the anesthesia. He was his usual self and in great spirits when the clowns visited him later that afternoon.

It'll take about two weeks before we have all of the results, but we did learn that one test showed some initial new cell engraftment, which the doctor said is good news at this early stage. Since Sebastian doesn't have many cells at this time, we will have to wait until he has the next aspiration in two months from now to gather more information and to learn if his engraftment is progressing incrementally which is the ideal scenario.

A few weeks ago, we were waiting for his immune system counts to go down and now we are waiting for them to rise. Specifically his neutrophils, because as long as he is neutropenic, we will not be able to leave the hospital. Sebastian's content here, but I'm looking forward to our family being back at the apartment together.

The weather here continues to heat up and we are told it will get much hotter. We continue to enjoy learning the language and interacting with the hospital staff. They are a wonderful group of people and it is a pleasure to get to know them and learn a bit about their lives and share a bit about ours.

The rest of the week has been uneventful - thankfully.