God Bless 'Merica

Everything is going very well, dad is feeling great, and we live in 'Merica! It's a great day to count our blessings, and one of the ones we are very thankful for is our outstanding quality of healthcare. While Jon and Steven have a laundry list of things that could improve the efficiency of our system, all of the innovation in the industry happens in our wonderful capitalist country. Given Carl's rare karyotype, having access to exotic treatment options helps us sleep better at night. It's our hope that the pending massive changes to our system don't remove the incentive for companies and labs to continue to expand the boundaries of medicine.

That said, here's an update on Carl: white blood cell count has bounced from 100 to 800, but neutrophils are still running low. He has no fever, blood pressure remains low, and spirits are high. He's still on antibiotics until the doctor can confirm he doesn't have a blood stream infection. He hasn't needed any new blood in 3 days, which the medical staff has been shocked by (since the blood-cell-generating marrow has effectively been wiped out, patients typically need new blood every day). And dad still has a full head of hair, another pleasant surprise.

We're jumping through a ton of administrative hoops to get Carl's siblings' marrow profiled to see if they can potentially be a donor to Carl. The chance of a sibling matching dad is 1 in 4. The chance of the general population matching dad: 1 in 600,000,000.

Other than that, things are quiet and happy. We probably won't get the BBQ pit setup, we got a huge frown when we inquired about the feasibility here.

If this whole episode has taught us anything, it's that every day should be a strong qualifier to be your last. So go out and make it a great day! Thank you for your prayers and support. We have 4 religions praying for dad, an alkaline diet, modern medicine, meditations, satsangs, and a family that is all-in on restoring dad back to health.