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We received some fantastic news on Monday!  Eli's first chimerism results came back and they couldn't have been much better.  His chimerism tells us what percentage of his cells are donor cells and what percentage are his own.  Because he's only 50ish days post transplant, his doctors wanted him to have at least 20% donor cells at this point.  Eli had much higher expectation for himself it turns out because he has 96% donor cells!  He has 100% donor B-Cells and about 90-94% donor T-Cells.  The actual number of T-Cells he has is slightly lower than they were hoping for but the thought is that because he's had so many viruses and has been so sick his body just isn't producing them fast enough.

Although it's ideal, not all SCID kids need to have 100% donor cells to have a successful transplant and live a healthy, regular life.  However, with Eli's specific type of SCID, there is a history of the non-donor cells turning into cancer cells.  Because of this, Eli had a very strong chemo regimen in order to wipe out as many of his own cells as possible.  We are very pleased that he has such a high percentage of donor cells already but are definitely hoping to get that last 4% as well so we don't have to worry about cancer down the road.

Yesterday Eli spiked his very first fever.  It was a low-grade fever but much higher than his temperature typically is.  They cultured all of his lines, are testing for several different viruses and increased his range of antibiotics.  Everything came back negative this morning and he no longer has a fever so we're thinking that he's just proud of himself that he now has enough of an immune system to produce a fever that he was just showing off his new trick.  Good job, little dude!  We're proud of you :)

Because he's been on peritoneal dialysis for several days, the doctors removed the original dialysis catheter from Eli's neck a couple days ago.  I was so excited to get that thing out!  The OR put such a large line in his tiny little neck there was a joke about him having a garden hose in there.  The thought of it freaked me out every day so I was ecstatic when they said they were going to remove it.  There was a higher risk of bleeding because it was so big but everything went well and he handled it like a champ.  I stood next to him and he gripped my hand as hard as he could and just closed his eyes.  I'm so proud of our little fighter.  He has worse scars from from where the line was sutured to his head than where it actually came out of his neck :(

PD dialysis has been on hold for the past 24 hours or so.  There was fear initially that the catheter in Eli's tummy wouldn't heal properly but we decided to go for it anyway.  A couple days ago it started leaking quite a bit and isn't as effective as it should be.  They decided to take him off dialysis in order to allow his tummy more time to heal and hopefully work better when he goes back on.   He's very fluid positive again since he's been off because he still isn't urinating nearly enough but his lungs have handled the fluid overload much better than we expected.  Hopefully we can get him back on dialysis soon to get some of the fluid off.

Respiratory wise we're making slow progress.  He still has a lot of support on the vent but is headed in the right direction.  All of this is definitely a test of patience. Eli has been so close to being extubated a couple times now and then something has happened both times that set him back quite a bit.  We know it will happen when he's ready but I just can't wait for him to get that breathing tube out so he can feel a bit more like a normal baby.  As soon as he comes off the vent we'll be able to hold him as much as we want and even put clothes on him finally :)

These are a few of my favorite pictures right now.  Miss this happy face so much!

Keep up the strong fight, little buddy!

**A few people have asked us when our story is going to air on KSL and we were told today that it has been pushed back a little bit until next week probably so I will definitely let y'all know when we have a date**