[skoopman]

Hi everyone,

It has been a while since I have posted anything new about Michelle, but that is a good thing. To bring people up to speed she was diagnosed with SAA June 1, 2005 at the age of 4. She turned 5 a few weeks later. We did rabbit ATG which knocked out her counts and they never responded. She was heavily transfusion dependent (red blood every 2-3 weeks, platelets twice a week) until she went to transplant. We decided to temporarily move to Milwaukee so she could be treated by Dr. Margolis at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. We lived at the Ronald McDonald House across the street from the hospital for 9.5 months. She had a 10/10 MUD (matched unrelated donor) transplant November 11, 2005. We know her donor is a 35 year old man from Germany, O+ CMV-

She engrafted really quickly and was discharged early from the hospital. She ended up having skin GvH that was easily controlled with steroids and steroid cream and then had gut GvH. That was harder to diagnose and treat but they did and she was fine afterwards.

She is currently doing fantastic! She turned 7 years old in June, just finished the season for the swim team where she went to practice 4-5 days a week, just performed in a dance recital, is in gymnastics, just started soccer and is about to start second grade. There are a few people who know about her history but she has reached the point I don't even mention it on medical forms anymore. She is 21 months post BMT with all normal counts (they have all been normal since day +21 or so). She is off all her medications. She has a slight touch of skin GvH but steroid cream on those locations takes care of it and it is mild enough that people don't really notice it. She has mild cataracts from all the steroids but as long as she doesn't go back on steroids they shouldn't get worse.

I know a BMT isn't for everyone, nor should it be. It is a huge decision but one we felt was the right choice for us.

Suzanne