Here Are the Facts

Mom typed up a summary of what has happened over the last few weeks in case I missed anything. Enjoy.

"Matthew spent the week of Feb. 10-16th back and forth to the hospital getting his stem cells harvested.  It was a long week of collecting and 23 painful shots.  He did a lot of laying around in the bed in a very noisy room as they were pulling his stem cells.  He had to go back to the hospital 3 nights that week after spending the whole day there so that they could give him transfusions and more shots and didn't get home until midnight and then back again by 7:30 am.  It was an exhausting week but Thursday they called us and they finally got enough stem cells for his transplant.  They took enough for two transplants in case two are necessary.  He then went back in on Friday for more transfusions and then to have the catheter removed from his chest.  During all of this Matthew still found the energy to go to a birthday party and volleyball tryouts where his coach put him on the varsity team.  Thanks coach Grover it means a lot to him and to us.

This past week Matthew had another round of chemo that lasted all 5 days of the week.  These chemos are hard ones and they last all day along with some platelets that he needed on Friday.  Again Matthew surprises everyone at the clinic by leaving there from chemo to go straight to Gilbert High for volleyball practice.  Matthew is the toughest kid we know.  He gets to celebrate President's Day back in the clinic getting more blood and platelet transfusions."