New News

Did I ever mention that throughout this last 10 days I have seen over and over again things that God has put into place months and years ahead of time in preparation for this event in Kaitlyn's life?  Read on.

Our 1-week anniversary in the hospital and we have some news:

1. Kaitlyn's lumbar puncture (spinal tap) from last Friday showed cancer cells in the spinal fluid.  However, her puncture from Tuesday showed NO cancer cells in the spinal fluid.  She received another spinal tap chemo treatment this morning (Friday) and she'll have another on Tuesday and if she stays clean, they will end the spinal chemo treatments.
2. Kait's bone marrow biopsy results are in and she is NOT high risk, but she is also not low risk.  She falls in the intermediate risk category and so they are planning for a bone marrow transplant.  Okay--so how does this qualify as "good" news?  Well, several things.  A bone marrow transplant, while risky and definitely grueling, offers the best chance for a complete cure.  Also, Kaitlyn has a lot of things going for her that give her a good chance for a successful transplant--8 things to be precise.  A sibling match is considered best and each sibling has a 1 in 4 chance of being a perfect match.  We asked the doctor if there was an age limit and he said that our other 7 children (ages 13 to 31) fall into the perfect range for donors.  So--to the Conner Kids:  We will soon be letting you know the procedure for beginning the testing to see if any of you are a bone marrow match for Kaitlyn.  The one thing I know is that it begins with just a blood test--easy-peasy.
3. What is the 8th thing Kaitlyn has going for her?  Well, when our last child, Eden, was born 13 years ago both Casey and I had sisters who were struggling with different types of cancer.  My sister asked if we might consider saving our baby's cord blood when she was born "just in case" which we did.  That cord blood is sitting, as we speak, in the New England Cord Blood Bank in Boston.  Yup.  Cord blood does not need to be an exact match, is less likely to produce graft vs. host disease, has more stem cells, and has a greater ability to reproduce.  It is also more like to be killed by the recipient's own cells, but it's a really good plan B and many lives have been saved with cord blood cells.   And when I think of all the years that I didn't feel like I had the money to continue the payments or just wondered why we were still holding on to that blood instead of just letting it go into the general blood bank!  When I told the doctor about our little deposit, he smiled.  That's got to be a good thing!