"Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens." - J. R. R. Tolkien
Elise is four years post-transplant and doing great. She just finished her Junior year in high school and we visited NIH for the her fourth annual follow-up exam. She's had some continued skin issues, basically some sort of allergic reaction on her forearms, but it seems to be reducing over time. Other than that and the anticipated "premature ovarian insufficiency" caused by the pretransplant conditioning, she's doing great.
In addition to her Junior year academics, this year she lettered in Tennis and ran distance events (800m and 1600m) on the track team. She was also part of the band colorguard during marching season and played flute when she wasn't doing colorguard. We also managed a few vacations including a trip to London at Thanksgiving. It sounds like a busy year and it was.
This summer she's helping at Becky's PT clinic, weight lifting and taking tennis lessons. The next year will be a big one. She'll finish her last year of high school and have her last visit to NIH, both markers of the start of the next stage of life.
