Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Loyal reader Russa offers this:
Thanks for inquiring into Henry’s health status, Jason.
Unfortunately, the bone marrow transplant didn’t take, but Team Thome has been encouraged to go at it one more time and they appear to have a live donor this time who also has the same immuno-virus that Henry has called CMV or Cytomegalovirus; this is apparently in their favor for donor matches as a CMV positive donor will give Henry’s body a better fighting chance at accepting the donor’s marrow.
Pray that this time it works for such a sweet little guy! You can check the URL attached to get updates on him.
Here’s part of a Christmas Day update from the Thome family’s web site:
as far as how he is feeling…we think he feels good. his temperature is normal for now. so far he is tolerating the new cmv medication ok. this new one can be a little rougher on kids. its also rougher on us because it is a 2.5 hour infusion twice a day that we do at home. phew! he is still eating ok and also now drinking lots of milk. we will just wait patiently for the next two weeks in hopes that his cmv copies go down and he doesn’t develop symptoms. in addition to the new medication, henry also received another batch of the special Baylor white cells which are supposed to help fight cmv. the doctors have are also testing this cmv strain in great detail to see if it has become resistant to any of the drugs. they are thinking that may be why it spiked up this week. the doctors want to monitor henry very closely this week. we’re going to make frequent visits to the clinic for exams. of course we’re so paranoid now that we watch him like a hawk too.
Thanks for the updates. We’re cheering for Henry.
There’s more background at Asheville Loves Henry.
