Brave Five Minutes Longer

“Today I look at my hero and see my beautiful daughter and couldn’t be more proud of her. Today she is giving her brother her bone marrow to cure his PNH and save his life. Today I will be forever grateful to GOD for blessing us with this incredible human being so that we have the honor to be called her Mom & Dad.”


So I wrote that on March 25th – Day 0. And when I got home and was going to put it in my blog, suddenly it seemed so unworthy of a post. I mean, how do you verbalize the miracle we witnessed? How do you verbalize the overwhelming thanks you are feeling? The relief? The debt of gratitude to everyone and especially to Sydney and to GOD. Today I realized the same way we do everything else in our lives, we do the best that we can with what we are given. Those words were given to me in a moment of time during that day and now I give them to you. I hope you find something to be thankful for today.

I’m sure you are wondering about the whole transplant process. Well after 10 extremely hard days for JT to prepare his body for Sydney’s bone marrow through some pretty intense drugs, the day was long and not quite as difficult for him as it had been. Sydney came to the hospital at 7:30am for her pre-op assessment and prepare for her surgery. There was a lot of sitting around and waiting to meet different doctors, sign consents, and receive instructions. The actual surgery didn’t begin until 10:30am. We had a private room to sit in during our wait with chairs and a TV. Jim, his Mom, and I were with her and JT remained in the Transplant Unit in his room watched by the nurses. Sydney was given general anesthesia and the operation took approximately an hour and a half. Two of the BMT Doctors performed the surgery by inserting large needles in both of her hips, into the bone and extracting approximately 2 liters of marrow out of it. It was then transported upstairs to JT’s room where it was infused in him over a 6 hour period. They didn’t have to “clean” up the blood as I originally told some of you because Sydney and JT share a matching blood type as well. If the blood type did not match, they would have to remove the red blood cells.  One more miracle to add to our list!

After an emotional recovery (anesthesia can do that to you) we wheeled Sydney to JT’s room to rest for awhile and for all of us to be together. The actual infusion was in a drip into his Central Line and is a similar process to a blood transfusion. I thought the marrow would be thick but the nurse told me they add saline and heparin to it to thin it out for the drip.

Jim stayed with JT for the next couple of days and so far JT has shown no signs of rejection or allergic reaction. They began a new chemotherapy called Methotrexate to keep his immune system suppressed for the next two weeks. They anticipate it taking 10 to 14 days for the bone marrow to graft and JT’s body to start making new cells. This is an average, so don’t call me on April 11 – I’ll be in touch.

“Grandma” and I took Sydney home where she slept the rest of Thursday and managed to get up and eat a little supper before sleeping the rest of the night. Friday she rested most of the day on some pretty good pain meds and later had a fun night with a visit from two church friends, Ethan & Jonathan who kept her entertained for a few hours. Saturday she was “sucking it up” once again to fulfill her social calendar obligation and insisted I take her and school friends Katie, Naomi & Eka to East Cobb Park to hang out. It was a beautiful day and I couldn’t resist. The highlight of the afternoon was an encounter from an Atlanta Journal Reporter who snapped shots of the girls and they are hoping to be in next Sunday’s Leisure Edition for an article on Spring! We ended the day with a donor celebration dinner treated by Grandma. Today I am at the hospital with JT hoping she is resting quietly because she is insisting to be at school bright and early tomorrow. You go girl!

JT continues to take it easy, doing his “chores” which mainly consist of laps around the nurses’ station, breathing exercises, school work and mouth care. I brought him some fettuccine alfredo and he ate for the first time in about five days! Who can resist the Stouffers? Our friend Kim sneaked his favorite fruit roll ups into my suitcase and JT has managed to eat and keep down 4 of those since I’ve been here. I can’t even imagine how that is sitting on an empty stomach. Hopefully I won’t have to “see”!

Today I am thankful to you my old & new friends and to my family for their continued prayers for a safe and speedy healing for my two brave children. I am thankful that Jim is home from Wisconsin. And I am thankful to GOD for continuing to show me ways to laugh and smile and to be at peace with this.

xo Sabrina

“Oh, give thanks to the LORD! Call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples!” 1 Chron 16:8.


“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)