We were fortunate enough that we were able to postpone Ryleigh’s surgery for the PD dialysis port. Her labs aren’t getting any worse, her hemoglobin has increased to a manageable level now that we are on Retacrit shots twice weekly. Her appetite is back and she is eating well and gaining weight. All this combined with the fact that the surgery was going to disrupt her first week of preschool led her Nephrologist to give us the option of holding off. She was so excited to start “big girl school” that it wasn’t a hard decision. She deserves to feel normal, and we do not want her going through dialysis for any longer than she has to so we decided to wait until it HAS to be done. I (dad) have an appointment at Emory on September 25th for my full donor transplant evaluation. I passed the initial screening for blood type and kidney function, now we just have to go through the cross matching to test for antibody buildup and hope it comes back negative or very low, and I’ll have a full physical work up with CT scans, xrays, ultrasounds, and more lab work to make sure I’m healthy enough to donate. Our hope is that by mid October they will clear me as the donor and we can set the transplant date, and then work backwards from there. Thank you all for the prayers and donations to COTA for Team Ryleigh, we are truly blessed.