December 12, 2016: Day +117 post-transplant

We are very excited to announce that Anna will be featured on the TODAY Show, tomorrow, December 13, at around 9:30 AM.  They are doing a week-long series entitled “Sharing Kindness” and Anna is part of a story focusing on Be The Match and the miracle of donating bone marrow.  Here is Anna with the wonderful producers Aaron and Madison.

It’s been a couple weeks since our last update.  Anna celebrated a huge milestone, day +100, in spectacular fashion – spending about an hour at our annual neighborhood Thanksgiving football game known as the Stupor Bowl.  She was able to see friends and neighbors while serving as the honorary captain and flipping the coin prior to the game.  Thanks to the generosity of our dear friends (and the coordination of Niall Phelan) the game raised $2,000 for COTA in Anna’s honor.  We were also fortunate to have a special guest – one of the greatest Cardinals in team history – former receiver Roy Green (on the left of the picture).

So, day 100 was a tremendous success filled with a sense of normalcy, accomplishment and joy.  Day 101 ended with Anna back in the hospital.  She developed a fever late in the day which means at least a 48 hour hospitalization.  After several precautionary tests it was discovered Anna had a sinus infection.  Certainly not the worst scenario but any sickness or infection is treated very seriously because of her suppressed immune system.  After two nights at PCH she was able to go home on a course of antibiotics.  Since then she’s been doing great.

Overall, Anna is doing remarkably well for a bone marrow transplant survivor in this stage of recovery.  In fact, her doctors felt she was well enough to participate in the first annual “Marrowthon” in which 26 Phoenix Children’s Hospital BMT survivors each walked a mile on Sunday, December 11.  It was a tremendous event, and a great chance to meet other families who have endured similar experiences as our family has.

Finally, if you’ve followed our story we hope it’s quite clear how this experience has changed us as a family.  Anna demonstrated how she’s capable of sharing kindness in a big way when she came up with the idea to have a lemonade stand to raise money for Phoenix Children’s Hospital.  She raised $150 and decided she’d like to purchase “Shot Blockers” for the BMT department.  The Shot Blocker is a simple device that makes shots less painful.  She uses them and wanted to help other kids have a better experience.

We hope everyone is having a great holiday season with their families.  This one should be special for ours.

Tim And Melissa