Loose ends...

So I got a feedback that I am a little lax in following up on post that I promise to give more details "later". In my defense, "later" is very ambiguous so I will attempt to follow up on a couple of posts that I promised more details about.

My niece... well, that is not a happy story. My niece is quite young and she was diagnosed with aplastic anemia several years ago. This disease requires a bone marrow transplant which can, often time, be a lengthy search for a donor match. Well, as it would happen, she had not only one, but three matches in her immediate family; her oldest brother, oldest sister and youngest brother. This is quite unusual but you also have to understand that she has six siblings so if anyone had a good chance of finding a match in her immediate family, she would!

Back in 2002 she had her first transplant and at first it appeared to be successful however, after a number of months passed, it seemed that they may not have "killed off" all her bone marrow before transplanting her sister's and that meant that her marrow was "fightin' it out" with her sister's. She managed to continue for a few years with medication but last year she took a turn for the worse. Her blood counts were down and they showed no sign of recovering so they decided to attempt a second transplant. This is an unusual move since they often will not attempt a second transplant. They decided to try again since they didn't get all her stuff out before transplanting her sister's and they also have a second match to try. This time her brother will be the donor and I believe they are adding something to the preparatory routine... somethin' in the way of extra chemo and I believe some radiation treatment too. This will be the last attempt and if it's not successful, they will make her comfortable but that's about all they can do.

I'd like to ask you all to keep her in your thoughts and prayers that this time they will be successful.

I think that's all I'd like to write about on this topic. It's little hard to think about right now... I feel so helpless 'cause there's nothing I can do directly to make it easier or even go away. It's a hard thing to balance giving her parents space and wanting to be there for them. This is particularly hard on Marie since it's her oldest brother whose going through this and she's a very compassionate person who will always be there to help. My feelings of helplessness are aggravated by the fact that my uncle is also very sick but he's over in England (I think I blogged about that before). When Marie and I took our two oldest over there (before the other kids were born) to visit my family, my uncle Kevin gave us a place to stay for one of the weeks we were there. Given the situation now, I so glad we had that opportunity 'cause until then, he was one of those family members I had met once or twice but didn't really know. I also got the opportunity to strike up a friendship with my cousin (his daughter) and I really have a special place in my heart for them. I'm glad that Kevin was able to meet his granddaughter before he went into hospital... he was a proud granddad waiting for her birth when he was over here in October. He reminded me so much of my granddad (who I was named after), both in looks and mannerisms.

Okay, I'm gonna go for a bit (and do some work) but I will come back and provide an update about the whole classmates thing later.

Have a good day everyone.

g.