Good Blood (and some cute pictures)

On Monday Nic, Kenny, and I spent the morning in the hospital for Nic's first blood transfusion. It was a little scary moving forward with it, since it was his first, but I have been amazed at how much he improved since getting that new blood. The process wasn't any worse than a blood draw or IV, it just took much much longer. The nurses in the peds specialty unit took great care of all of us, and as usual the Ronald McDonald room volunteers made our day a little easier and a lot more fun. We are very hopeful that this blood will be enough for Nic, as his body should have enough time to recover from the parvovirus before the effects of the new blood wear off, however there is an outside chance that he will need another transfusion if his marrow is slow to make those new cells he needs. For now we are grateful that he has perked up so much and that we were able to travel to be with our families for Christmas.

Before we left we had a chance to celebrate Christmas and have the kids open their gifts from us. The pictures of Tommy opening up the Nerf gun that he has been longing (and begging) for are so priceless that we had to post them. The other kids enjoyed their presents too, but Tommy was over the moon with happiness.

And here is a perked-up Nicolas showing off his new Spiderman baseball set.