[evansmom]

Hi Jen,

The room Ethan is in sounds similar to Evan's and the fact that the staff are good about washing hands, wearing gloves and masks is very good. I think the gowns everyone wore (including me) until engraftment was really erring on the side of caution, but I thought it was a good idea as an extra ounce of prevention.

Wow, I can't believe that about the seems tearing on the bag of marrow. I've never heard of that before either. I'm sure if there was a problem with contamination that couldn't be covered with all the antibiotics etc., you would have seen fever etc. almost immediately after the transplant so I think that whole aspect is OK, thankfully.

Yes, CMV is a bugger of a virus in transplant. Was Ethan CMV positive going in? If not, was his donor CMV+? It's not as likely to become CMV positive from a + donor but it is possible. The very good news here is that the amount of CMV (copies) is very low at 1000. So they did catch it early and gancyclovir or Valcyte is very effective in knocking the copies back down towards zero. Valcyte can bring the white count down some but I don't think it will delay engraftment per se.

CMV is quite common in the post BMT days and the docs know exactly how to deal with this. Focus on the fact that it was caught early and it should be wiped out relatively easily.

These are difficult days that you are in. Just remember to take things one day at a time, it's such a cliche, but one that holds very true.

Stay strong,