My apologies for a long over-due update on Max. Most nights after I put the boys to bed I am finding myself crawling into my own bed shortly after. Unfortunately with that being, said my blogging has taken a back seat. The past several weeks have been quite busy for Max and our family. Max had his stent removal surgery which I am happy to report was a success. He endured a couple weeks having a catheter which he handled quite well. He underwent a bladder scan to see if there were any issues with reflux into the new kidney. There was concern with the hydronephronisis that was occurring in the transplanted kidney but the scan showed no reflux and that the ureters and bladder were working properly. Max’s post transplant labs and clinic appointments are now once a week which has given us a bit more time back and has us traveling less. We tried to fit in some end of the summer fun while we could and the highlight was a trip up to Door Co. for a day. The boys loved the car ferry and our first visit to Washington Island. With the start of September school started for the boys. This year Max is a 6th grader at Hortonville Middle School. He was super excited for school and seemed to be even more excited for his little brother to start 4K. Max was able to start 6th grade at school, but after 2 weeks we decided it was best to have him start virtual school at home. Unfortunately Max’s counts are running low and for some reason are continuing to go lower. The transplant team is adjusting his medications as that may be the cause. With the rise in Covid cases we just feel like its best to keep Max home until cases decline in numbers and his counts are doing better. With his counts down right now he is more prone to infection so we are just doing our best to keep him safe. Sadly, he is not thrilled with being home as he loves school, that and mom does not make a good assistant virtual teacher! As for kidney function I feel like we play the numbers game every week. Some weeks his function is good and we are jumping for joy and then there are weeks were his creatinine is high and we are knocked down and questioning why. The anxiety of each weeks lab can be tiring and we are trying to not let it get the best of us. We continue to learn so much and celebrate the victories no matter how small. Tonight though we celebrated a big victory…Max’s 3 month kidney transplant anniversary. As he blew out his 3 candles representing 3 months I stopped for a moment realizing how amazing this transplant journey has been for Max and our family and how grateful we are.