First Day of 5th Grade
Well I can hardly believe it: Summer appears to be gone...and Fall is in the air. The house is actually cold at night. The trees are starting to turn magenta and orange and gold. To seal the deal, we are actually going to a Seahawks game tomorrow. If that doesn't scream "Summer's over!" at you, nothing will.
We went to the Puyallup Fair on Thursday, for our annual "Get out of an Afternoon of School" day. Once, several years back, I was able to leave work early and I scooped up Jack and we went to the Fair. Now--it has become a family Fall requirement. I remember a sermon Earl Palmer gave one time, about how you do something once...and it becomes a Family Tradition. So true, but I kind of like it that way! Anyway. Jack got an elephant ear, and Bill & I each bought a WHOLE PIE at the Young Life pie booth. That'll help the diet!
Kari and Lisa are coming home from Africa today. It's been a loooong 2 1/2 weeks for me! Imagine how it's been for them.
Jack & Nick got parts in the Fall play: The Music Man. Jack, my little lotus blossom, is suddenly involved in everything: The Play! 5th Grade Choir! Boy Scouts! Safety Patrol!
Mentioning The Music Man reminds me that I need to give you a Mom update. (The M.M. is her favorite musical of all time.) Let's see: this week her platelets have ranged between 19,000 and 52,000. Her white blood cell count was alarmingly low a couple of weeks ago, but that appears to have righted itself. And when she went in for her whole blood transfusion last Saturday, Sept. 17, there was good news and bad news. The Good News was, it had been three whole weeks since her last transfusion. The Bad News was, her body was starting to reject transfused blood. I cannot find any kind of prognosis attached to this anywhere; all I know is this condition has a name, alloimmunization:
Multitransfused recipients of random donor platelet concentrates frequently form broadly-reactive human leukocyte antigen (HLA) antibodies which restrict the pool of suitable donors to those who are HLA matched with the recipient.
So what this says, I think, is, she can get blood that they call "scrubbed".....proteins are taken off of red blood cells, and/or white blood cells are removed (?). But in the short term, it means her wait in the hospital before a transfusion remains hours and hours and hours long, and very tiring. Before, she just had to wait forever to get regular old donated blood. Now, they have to find this special blood. Makes me a little crazy.
But: she did not need a transfusion this week, so a big YAY! and Thank You Jesus! for that.
