Robert’s Road to Recovery Journal

Presented by the International Society for Mannosidosis & Related Diseases.

Kathleen’s Diary: May 31, 2002

BMT + 58

Life is good! Today Robert’s platelets stayed the same as yesterday. This means he has to be making his own and he has gone four days without a transfusion. His bilirubin dropped 2.1 points and his GGT went down 244 points. He is asleep right now because he received benedryl in preparation for receiving red blood, 0+ (remember he used to be AB blood type). We are both waiting for G’ma, Uncle Dan and Matt to visit.

Helen Crouch came by today to drop off a letter and a picture. Helen is the donor coordinator. I had given her a letter about a month ago to send to the donor (something I should have done ages ago).

You may want to sit down when you read this and you may want to get the tissues out. The letter was from Robert’s donor and I am going to type it in here. I hope that he would not mind my sharing his news with all our family and friends:

May 17, 2002

Dear Kathleen,

We were very excited when we received your note and photos recently. You can’t imagine how much it means to us to finally hear some news about your son. (Your photos were priceless!!)

Even though we didn’t know his name at the time, Robert has been in our thoughts and prayers since I was first asked to be a marrow donor.

My wife Kathy and I were surprised by the similarities as my name is Robert and I am a twin. We look forward to hearing from you again and can’t wait until we can write directly. We have enclosed a photo of our family.

R.H.

OK, isn’t that letter pretty cool?

Counts