Engraftment Update

We have officially been in the hospital for 60 days now, and are on day +39 after transplant. Raul is quite sick, but the good news is that his cells ARE doing what they are supposed to do! Raul's engraftment numbers came back last week, and his CD15+ is 75% and CD3+ is 100% (those are the percentages of donor cells vs. his cells)! The CD15+ result is normal for low-dose chemotherapy transplants (you would expect it to be 100 in high dose). The fact that the CD3+ is 100% donor means that he currently has complete engraftment of that cell type. These numbers will be checked again at day +60, +90, etc. With the low intensity chemo., many families see these numbers go up or down some. But for now this is great news!

It will be quite a while before we see the full effects of the BMT on Raul's EB. However, we have seen some positive changes in his skin already. Some areas are seeming stronger and more "normal". Some of his large wounds are starting to slowly shrink in size. His worst wounds are the same size, but seem less inflammed and more filled in. Other than getting the blood blisters on his hands (most likely worse from fluid overload), he has no areas that have gotten worse in the past 39 days, which is significant on its own as his wounds had been progressing quite quickly. Despite all the complications he is having, we are optimistic that his transplant is helping!