24/10/2014

Hiatus

I should have done this ages ago but it's all been a little grim here over the last year. Those of you who follow my personal blog - Zone Doubt - will know that our son was diagnosed with aplastic anaemia last September, a week before he was due to start his M. Eng. degree in Computer Studies at Bristol University. Since then he's been reliant weekly blood and platelet infusions to keep him alive: the first course of ATG chemotherapy last October didn't work, and the transplant team at the Bristol Oncology and Haematology Centre were unable to find a bone marrow donor for him.

So we've undergone a fairly new procedure - haploid-identical stem cell transplant, using stem cells from me. We were given a 65% chance of success. He had the transplant on the 1st of September, and to our astonishment, relief and utter joy it worked. He's now on Day +50 post transplant, his cell counts are almost back to normal, and so far he's shown no trace of GvHD (though as you'll see if you read the wiki article, that could change). But we are all hopeful. So far everything has gone well.

AA is never cured, just goes into remission. The university have deferred Kai's place until October 2015, and we have hopes that he'll be able to go then. In the meantime, we are doing everything we can to give him the best chance possible of fighting the disease.

Progress will be posted on Zone Doubt. I'll return to this blog when I have the time, energy and inspiration to continue.

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