After the dropping chimerism from last week’s test results, we were dreading the news of this week’s chimerism test. All lines seem to be stable, thank God. While we are far from where we had hoped to be by Day 100, we are nonetheless grateful that the Myeloid graft appears to be holding on – at least for now.
Looking back at the overall trend, our doctors in Seattle consulted with every known expert on earth about what to do next. Multiple doctors have voiced the opinion that it is best to sit tight and wait, hold off on the next DLI, for now, and see if the numbers start to go up. They are all reassured by the fact that his counts have actually remained relatively stable, all things considered. For this reason, they believe that another DLI at this juncture could do more harm than good as it carries the risk of both GvHD and annihilating Idan’s bone marrow. The plan for now is to re-check the chimerism on February 10th, and re-consider the DLI if his counts drop. Until then, a 12% T-cell graft may not be enough to cure Idan’s Hyper IgM, but, if it remains above 10%, it may just be enough to ward off the cancers that often plague children with the disease. 
Amazing how a little morsel of good news (the graft is not in free-fall as we feared) can go a very long way. The sun was out the past couple days here in Seattle, and if you look really closely, you can see tiny buds beginning to grow on the trees in our neighborhood. There’s nothing quite like hint of Spring to fill you with hope and the promise of life, no matter how bleak things may look at the time.
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