Just Keep Swimming (D+58)

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” - Martin Luther King 

It's hard to believe were already at 58 days after Elise's stem cell transplant. She's made it a full week as an outpatient - Woo Hoo! Just six more to go and then we get to come home. During that time they'll be watching for infections, graft-vs-host-disease (GVHD) and VOD.

Things are going really well. Elise has blood tests at least once a week so they can track the recovery progress of her new immune system as well as monitor the levels of some of the medications they are giving her. All her medications are oral and that's so much better than multiple times a day IVs. All the signs so far have been positive.

She had a follow-up eye exam this week. After the chemo conditioning for transplant her eyes weren't focusing as well as a typical 13 year old. The Dr had said it was pretty typical, but that it would come back. And sure enough, she's back to 20/20. She proved it by reading "The Giver" in 2 days before seeing it in the theater this weekend.

NIH has a couple teachers on staff through the local school district and Elise has been working with one of them most of the summer. School started at home last week, so Elise "started" here as well (although we're waiting on the study guides from the teachers at Murray). We have her books and some informal guidance from her principal so she's started on that. We hope she doesn't get too far behind.

We've been trying to take advantage of the local area. We visited the Baltimore "Inner Harbor" area and spent some time at the National Aquarium that's located there. We also took a harbor cruise. Today we went to the National Museum of the American Indian and also the Air and Space Museum.

So we'll continue on with this routine for a while. Kinda boring, but that's definitely better than the alternative. Becky and I are taking advantage of the gym in our apartment complex and the weather has been nice in the evenings, so we've been able to go for walks and sometimes eat dinner at restaurants with outdoor seating which we both enjoy.