Greetings, supporters of Danny! Today marks the 9th day of Danny’s hospital stay, and the final day of his chemotherapy treatment.
The doctors are very pleased with how well he has tolerated the chemo. He has received 3 more blood transfusions since my last update, for a total of 6 transfusions. As a reminder, this is expected because as the chemo wipes out all the bad stuff, it takes some good stuff with it.
Danny is now neutropenic. This is also an expected result of the treatment. Neutropenia means that he has too few neutrophils, a type of white blood cell that helps fight infections. So, he is very vulnerable during this time, and we must take extra precautions to keep him safe and healthy.
He will remain hospitalized as long as it takes for his blood counts to get back to a safe level. It could be a week or longer. Fingers crossed that things bounce back in a week or less!
Danny took his first walk yesterday (November 28), down to the hospital’s courtyard where he enjoyed some sunshine and fresh air. This was a small but important victory!
As a reminder, the end goal is a bone marrow transplant. Chemo alone is not enough to cure Danny. Many of you have asked how you can help. Now is your chance!
Finding a donor match can be like finding a needle in a haystack, we’ve been told. Here is some information on how donors and patients are matched. Parents, siblings, and children are often a match, but 70% of transplant patients do not have a match in the family. Danny’s brother, Craig, is being tested. Fingers crossed that he’s a match!
But if Craig is not a match, the transplant team will keep searching. This is where you come in! There are TWO routes you can take if you’d like to be tested to see if you’re a match:
- To be tested and added to the national marrow registry, click here. You will then select the “Join online” button. Be The Match is operated by the National Bone Marrow Donor Program. Their site is a wonderful resource for both patients and donors. Keep in mind that if you go this route, you will not just be tested as a possible match for Danny. You will be added to the national registry. This means you could be called upon in the future to donate bone marrow to a stranger. There’s also a chance though that you’d be a match for Danny!
- The second route is for folks who prefer to be tested as a private donor, meaning that you would not be added to the national registry. You would only be tested for Danny. This is called “private HLA testing” and is offered through an organization called Kashi Laboratories. Read more about this process and/or order your private testing kit here. Please note: the private HLA testing kit costs $195. There is no cost for the public testing offered through Be The Match, described above.
If you’d like to be tested through either above-mentioned resource, I encourage you to do so as soon as possible. The sooner we can find a match, the sooner Danny will be on his way to a cancer-free life! So, get on it, friends!!!
Thank you again for your wonderful support. It is much needed and much appreciated! We still have a long road, so keep it coming.
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