This picture is Dr. Sokolic, Katlyn's doctor holding those beautiful magical cells that are going to make her better
Katlyn wearing her lucky Dora hat during the procedure.
Dr. Sokolic injecting cells in her.
By the way, it was rock-paper-scissors over who had to video tape and who got to hold Katlyn, and I lost of course. The moment was just so surreal. Katlyn now has two birthdays.


I'm so sorry it took me so long to get this video and pics on here of Katlyn's procedure. I just had to make sure that her doctor was okay with me putting it on here for everyone to see, since he's in it too. He was away for awhile, but everything is fine. So here you all go. The actual procedure took about 40 secs. Imagine that. The amount of time that we have put into preparation and it only took 40 sec. Well I'd say that 40 secs was one of the most important 40 we'll ever know.
As for an update on Katlyn I just needed to tell everyone that she is doing fantastic. The doctor's were expecting one thing to happen and hoping for another and Katlyn is doing more than they can hope for. She is great. Her neautrophils as of Tuesday were 820, which means that she had gone up. Now she was supposed to get blood work done today but they switched blood draw to Fridays. So we'll have a better picture tomorrow. She had some research blood drawn this week and there was some great ADA activity for this stage, more than they were expecting. So the doctor told me that according to the protocol they have to keep her here until day 30. If by that time she has no problems with her platelets (which she hasn't, knock on wood), her neautrophils have to be above 500 for at least 4 blood draws and her neautrophils can be declining anymore, than she will be able to go back to the IWK. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't wait. It's a lot closer than we anticipated and we are so excited. So our girl is doing fantastic. The doctor actually said that what they are seeing is textbook gene therapy. YEAH!!!
Thanks everyone for all your praying and kind words. It definitely makes this time a little easier knowing we have such great support, not to mention that we have little trooper Katlyn surprising everyone.
We still have a long road ahead of us, but we are definitely making progress.

So Funny

One of the most hilarious things I have ever saw just happened. Katlyn has one of those plastic lawn chairs, you know the ones. They are completely plastic and all one piece. Well hers is the same, only a lot smaller. Well, I was sitting hear clearing up her supper that she wasn't interested in eating when I heard some grunting noises. I looked over and Katlyn was sitting in front of the mirror with this chair over her head. She had her head right where the back and rest of the chair meet, yeah the arm meets there so it's like a big hole in the chair. Anyways I sat there thinking okay Katlyn you can get out of that. Come on girl. So she tried and tried then she got really upset so I went over to investigate and help her out. The holes are pretty big so I didn't really think it was going to be a problem. Well I pulled, and I turned her head and pulled a few times and realized she was stuck. I hit the nurse call button and when the nurse asked what I needed I had to say "Katlyn has her head stuck in a chair and I need some help. She asked what I said so I said it again and she said she'd be right there.
By this time Katlyn was getting pretty upset. I told her she might have to stay like that forever, with her head stuck in a chair. She didn't like that. I was in tears because I was laughing so much. I decided the best way to handle it was to keep her calm so we started to read a book, sitting in front of the mirror with her head stuck in a chair.
The nurse came in and assessed the situation. She held Katlyns ears while I carefully pulled the chair off her head. She was so happy she started clapping. The poor little buggy. The nurse said she couldn't even understand me but decided I must need her for something and decided to come quickly. She probably couldn't understand me because I was all the way across the room and laughing. It really was just so cute and I'll never forget it.

Katlyn is doing very well. Yesterday she had to get some blood work done and her neautrophils were up a bit compared to Thursday. She had been 700 and yesterday she was 820. It's hard to say what's going on exactly. Her doctor said there is still a possibility that she could drop over the next 2 or three weeks. Hopefully, that's not the case and she keeps climbing up. If she still drops then hopefully it's just slightly. Her doctor told us then when Katlyn's neautrophils are above 500 and there is so lymphocyte activity, then we can go back to Halifax. From there it's unknown because it's up to her doctor at the IWK and what he wants to do. Understandably, we do live a 8 hour drive from the hospital.
Her doctor here just wants to get her home as soon as possible because he doesn't want to put her at more risk either at the clinical center or Children's Inn, which of course we can appreciate. I'm so thankful they want to be just as careful as we do. Dr. Issekutz, at the IWK, is a very very careful doctor as well. We trust him and know that whatever he decides is the best thing to do.
All is well though. She looks great and from what I can see, she feels great too. She started to pick her nose recently also. She was standing in the corner very quietly and went over to see what she was doing and sure enough she had her finger shoved right up there. What a little bugger.

Day 6

Katlyn always seems to be running around with her notepad and either a pencil or crayon.
It will be so nice when we can actually let her walk out the door. She's trying to figure out how to operate it on her own.
Katlyn playing with her grocery cart. If you notice behind her there's lots of coloring on the door and wall. She must have forgot about the notepad that day.
Cute as a button. That's my little Buggy.

So there hasn't been any real news of yet. Right now we are still waiting for her cells to hit their lowest. They must do this first before they can start to go back up. In the past they usually see this happen within 10 days of the chemo and right now we're day 9. As of Thursday her neautrophils were 700 and we expect that they'll go lower by Monday, her next blood draw. How far, we don't know. This process is unfortunately necessary in order to give Katlyn's new cells an unfair advantage over her old ones. So first we'll see everything go down, and then everything will come back up. The first thing we'll be watching will be her neautrophils and then after awhile her lymphocytes. The main focus right now is neautrophils and Katlyn's are doing pretty good. The kind of think of 500 as a milestone or a safety. 500 isn't high, but it's a start.

Everything is fine though. We're just keeping ourselves really busy trying to keep Katlyn healthy.

Thes pics are from chemo day when we didn't know if things were going to happen. So Katlyn was a ninja that day.
These are pics I took of transplant day. She's so pretty!!!

We just have to wait until Katlyn's doctors is okay with the pictures going on her blog. His in them because he administered her news cells back in her body. Sorry about the delay but I will get them on here as soon as I can.