No Family Matches

Unfortunately we just received word that Ray's sister was NOT a match either. And we were told that Randy can NOT be a candidate because it's common for people with downs syndrome to develop leukemia in later years & they wouldn't want to inject those type stem cells into Ray. MDS is often referred to as pre-leukemia because if left untreated that's what it usually develops into.

The next step now is to check the National Donor Registry for a match. We've been told that Ray has a 75% chance of finding a match there. Although it's not the ideal way to go because an un-related donor increases the odds of his body possibly rejecting the donated stem cells. But it's the only option we have right now. However there are many success stories of un-related donation transplants & we hope to be among them! 

Because so many have offered to be tested to see if they are a match for Ray, I need to share this;  Siblings are tested 1st & if no match then they search the World wide Donor Registry. They will NOT under any circumstances allow anyone we know (other than siblings) to be tested. They won't even test our children. Apparently statistics prove that children rarely match. We were told that the only way they'd test a patients child is if 2 brothers married 2 sisters because they would share the same DNA on both sides. Interesting huh? Ray's Uncle Johnny & Uncle Harold actually did marry sisters. That doesn't help us out any tho. It MUST be anonymous.We even know someone here in our park that is already on the Donor Registry & a few others that said they want to be tested to see if a match but rules are rules & the hospitals say absolutely not. So if someone joined the registry, they could be called one day to be someone's stem cell donor but they wouldn't know who it was, nor where they lived, or anything. Ray could actually have a donor from another country but we wouldn't know it! The Donor Registry is almost 10 million strong.

We were told today that there is a possibility that if Ray's white blood cell count doesn't rebound, they may need to start him on some additional medications to help with it & possibly delay next weeks chemo sessions.

There is a lot of sickness beginning to circulate around our park here lately. But folks are pretty good about staying in & away from others so as not to infect them. We certainly appreciate that!