We had Sam’s 1 year post transplant visit on Monday April 29 and found out he no longer has to take any medicines!!?!?!? That was mind-blowing to John and me (even though it was at the same time expected) (all the medicines were prophylactic to protect him while his immune system reconstituted). 

And the fact that he never had to take any immunosuppressants is still something we marvel at. 

Science is fucking awesome! 

of course he still needs his vaccines, so we are going to line those up and knock them down. The good news is his recent blood test showed that his immune system can make memory cells so can “remember” the vaccine (historically they gave the vaccines too early before the memory cells were being made so they had to give them again). So he’ll start with DTAP and HiB and IPV (polio). 

And Zack finds this endlessly funny: “Sam has to get his baby vaccines! Sam is a baby!”  Gotta love little bro humor. 😀

There are a couple of things we have to check again in the next 3 months before he goes to college:
— his EKG showed slight differences from his echocardiogram — but they are pretty certain a 2nd EKG will be in line with the echo and show no issues.
— his lungs show a bit of “airway resistance” along the lines of asthma but they aren’t 100% if that is from the radiation and chemo or if it was an artifact of the RSV that he’d had right before the test was run.  An inhaler can address it if it is an ongoing issue.

And he still has to manage his sun exposure as graft vs. host disease is still a possibility. Sam is *great* at using sunscreen now though and he can go out in the sun, just has to watch the UV level and can’t do things like whitewater rafting (our favorite family adventure) or other activities where there is reflective sunlight and direct sunlight.  But he navigated Disneyland with us over spring break, and college visits with lots of outside time, without any sunburn.

And we’ll meet with his oncology doctor and nurse practitioner in the next month to talk about a monitoring plan (his leukemia mutation requires this for a bit as it is rare and can be tricky) which will probably include a blood draw every 3 months. 

Lots to celebrate over here! But for the next 2.5 weeks it’s blinders on as finals are here and then AP exams. He’s taking AP Psych, AP Macroeconomics and AP Chinese. Thankfully this year Paly (his high school) scheduled prom *after* AP tests so that will be May 18.

And then graduation on May 30!!

#FULeukemia
#LFGStemCells
#TeamSamStrong