Angel wasn’t feeling too well these last few days.  She was having headaches and stomach pain.  We mentioned this to her doctor at yesterday’s appointment.  Her doctor switched out some of her meds and added one more to the already long list of medications.  It’s been one day, and so far it seems like the little changes are working.  She didn’t complain about pain at all today!  

About every 30 days post transplant, they draw more blood than usual at her weekly doctor’s appointments to check her chimerisms, which no matter how many times I ask, I still don’t fully understand what that means; however, the basic answer is they check to see the percentage of blood that is Angel’s blood compared to the donor’s blood.  They are hoping the percentage is as close to 100% as possible.  Generally, on a broader scope, the percentage right now from last tests have been 100%, but when they look closer at other cells within the blood, the percentage drops slightly.  Currently there’s a bit of awareness with her T-cells.  The 1st time they checked, the percentage was about 89% and the 2nd time it dropped to 84%.  It’s not “terrible”, but it’s not good either.  We’re staying positive and hoping the percentage will rise closer to 100%.  We’ll have those results in a few weeks.