Jennings’s chimerism remains at 99-100%. Thank you to everyone who has continued to pray. While it’s not the perfect 100% that we hoped for, it is stable. According to his NP at St. Jude, “This is good news, I promise.” So, maybe this is the new norm and if it stays at 99-100%, we’ll take that.

The rest of his visit to Memphis a couple weeks ago was uneventful. His normal CBC labs looked good with the exception of a slightly high white blood cell count. That was a little nerve-racking initially as we did not yet have his chimerism back at that point. It was not significantly high and could be explained by a recent ear infection he had, so it didn’t cause too much worry. The day after his typical Wednesday clinic visit, he had a 5-hour neuropsychological assessment. He wasn’t really old enough for this after his first transplant, but the goal is to help understand his level of development and identify any support that he may need to be successful in school or otherwise. We are still awaiting the report from that.

It’s been a long few weeks. First, waiting for the trip to Memphis to get here, then waiting for chimerism results after. We’ve noticed that the turnaround time has slowed. It took six days for it to result this time. In the past, if it was done at St. Jude on a Wednesday, we would typically have results by Friday. That extra waiting is no bueno.

Looking back, I think waiting was causing some subconscious stress for us both. The longer the wait became, the shorter our tempers and the easier it became for us to find ourselves overwhelmed. Here’s a few from the trip 👇

Clockwise from top left: Reunited with Memphis friends and wasting no time trading some time with his new Tweasuh X toy for a cookie; Mommy & J back at the Jude; Jennings climbing the art representing the Pediatric Cancer Genome Project; the old BMT clinic wait.

The plan from here is a visit to Memphis in January, then another in April for his two-year. With the holidays in between, I don’t think we will push for another chimerism check before then. That’s partly because we are taking some comfort in the result holding. The other part is not wanting “this” front and center during the holidays. Like I said, anticipating the day of the labs then waiting for results doesn’t exactly fill us with joy. Over the last few years, the holidays have been a time of trauma for us anyway, so for this season…he’s cured until he’s not.

As you can imagine and probably relate, we have been plenty busy. Leading up to the Memphis trip, Lauren had a couple of back-to-back girls’ weekends. One with friends then one with family. To her credit, she had little to do with scheduling them back-to-back. I had done the same thing back in August, so it was her turn.

The kids and I adopted an “every Palmer for themselves” mindset, binge watched cartoons, and survived on Cheetos and Ramen noodles. I’m mostly kidding. But we did survive.

Here are a few more random ones from the fall…

Clockwise from top left: we had our 20th high school reunion a few weeks back, clearly the ‘02 is a solid vintage; our gymnast had her first competitive meet; L celebrated a birthday doing what she loves…being with friends and singing karaoke; the kids, their pumpkins, and Jennings…with a little Captain in him.

I’m interested to hear what the psychological evaluation has to say. You never quite know for sure what’s going on in that head of his and how he’s processing all that he has experienced.

We were driving home from a baseball game recently (the rookie machine pitch Yankees are in the championship game by the way 💪💪). It’s just him and me in the car. He randomly says to me, “I can’t get it out of my head.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“The worst part of my life,” he said. My mind immediately went to obvious places, and I started thinking about how to respond and encourage him.

“When was that?” I asked, almost sure I knew the answer.

“When we were in Memphis,” he said. Yep, I thought, here it comes.

But then he continued, “When I got separated from sissy on my bike and was lost. I thought I was going to have to turn into a wilderness man.”

“Huh, ok” I replied, completely perplexed and impressed by his use of “wilderness man.” We had not seen, heard, or talked about anything to do with that memory since it happened. I can’t remember if I shared it here or not, but he and Caroline were riding bikes around the block on Mud Island back when we were in Memphis last year. They got separated and he ended up missing for about 20-30 minutes. “Oh hi, nice, retired Mud Island resident. We seem to have lost our post-transplant, immunocompromised 6-year-old. Have you seen him by chance? Yes, the one with the central line bulging under his shirt.” Fortunately, we found him, and all had a relieved sigh & laugh. Apparently, it left a bigger imprint on him than I thought!

Anyway, have a Happy Halloween and please keep up your prayers. We’ll be back with an update around Thanksgiving.

Behold God, He is a God of restoration. “Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!” Ps 126":5

#allinforjennings