It's been awhile since I have been active on this blog, but with the changes coming to Facebook, I needed a spot to update, family and friends about the next big thing in our family's life.
Six years ago, Zilong joined our family! Life has been a whirlwind in all sorts of wild and wonderful ways. Maddie is now 16, Violet just turned 15, and Zilong is 12. This means we are BUSY!
ZiLong also has Beta thalassemia major, which means his body does not make hemoglobin and he requires blood transfusions every three weeks. Almost 2 years ago we started on the path for him to participate in the gene editing process called Zynteglo. We traveled to Oakland in March of last year, where they harvested his cells and sent them to the lab to be modified. We learned in July just before we anticipated traveling for his transplant, that there was a problem with his cells and we would need to start all over again.
We traveled back to Oakland in November and collected them once again. We were notified two weeks ago that his cells are ready to go, and we will be starting the process in Oakland on March 24 this year.
Feel free to follow along on this wild ride that will help him to live a life free of blood transfusions!
