Good Enough is All that Matters

Today I got a bit of a reality check from the receptionist at Dr. Hei's office.  She has always been so sweet, and happy to see B when he checks in for appointments.  Lately she's been sick herself, and away from her post for days or weeks at a time.  So B was very happy to see her back today, for the 1st time in 2 weeks.

While I was waiting for B to come out of the restroom so we could leave, I decided to stop by her station and let her know our news.

"They found a donor."
"Yay! That's wonderful!"  Accompanied by hand-clapping, squealing and bouncing.
"yeah."
"Why aren't you more excited?"
"Well, it's not a perfect match, so there's more risk, and that's kind of scary."
"Okay, I can see that it would be scary."
"It's not perfect, but they said it's 'good enough'."
"Good enough is all that matters!"

YOu know what?  She's right.  A perfectionist like me needs to be reminded of  these things from time to time.  Good enough is perfectly acceptable.  Especially after a day of further research re: GVHD and cord blood transplants.  

GVHD is on the decline.  People are only 30% likely to have a severe case.  That really means the mortality rate is closer to 15%.  That's a workable number.  Also, even though cord blood transplants are looking very promising for children, they're very difficult to accomplish for full-grown people right now.  The sheer volume is a problem.  And you may not know for a full year whether or not the transplant will "take."  That's an awful long time to go without an immune system.  With a BMT,  you know within several weeks if it's working.  If it doesn't work for some reason, you can go back to the original donor for another try (can't do that with cord blood).

The cord blood thing is in clinical trials right now, so there isn't  a lot of info on the topic.  But if the BMT just doesn't work, it's still in the realm of possiblity to try.  It doesn't take as long to find the match for cord blood - just a few weeks, because they're only matching 4 loci.  It turns out that the Bone Marrow Donor Bank says you only need to match 6 of 6 loci for a perfect match, 5 is acceptable, less than that is not.  B is matching in 7(!) locations with his potential donor.  And the one mismatch is in a DNA criteria, not an antigen criteria.  So really, it's a very very good match.  It's  not nearly as scary as it was this time yesterday.  Aren't processing and the internet wonderful things?

Tonight, we're having a family dinner and family meeting to discuss everything that's coming up.  Gazpacho and communication, what a great combo :)