Hi Phin phans! Dustin here with an update on Phin for August, 2025.
Before we get into it, I just want to thank you all for continuing to follow Phin's progress, even though we're approaching the one-year anniversary of his return home after his bone marrow transplant and subsequent recovery period in Atlanta. For the most part, he's been doing well since then, although we've been through enough by now to know that could change at any time.
Sometimes as I'm writing these updates, I think, Maybe our people would rather we only bother them if something serious is happening? There are plenty of childhood cancer blogs like that--annals of diagnosis and treatment that stop with a triumphant, "Well, we sure are glad that's over! Thanks for following along, everyone!" only to resume, heartbreakingly, with an entry a few months later that begins with the line, "We hoped we'd never have to post here again...."
In part, I still post these (usually) monthly updates on Phin out of dread of that happening.
Mostly, though, I do it because if you're reading this, there's a really good chance you've been following Phin's progress for a very long time. You've put in emotional labor through keeping tabs on how he's doing, and it hasn't always been easy. Neesha and I both know that. We haven't forgotten. You've invested in our child's life. A lot of this writing is me trying to show you how your investment is doing: This is what he's doing with the time you hoped he would have.
(And okay fine, some of it's for me, too, because writing helps me work through things and feel better. Sometimes, anyway.)
So thanks for still being here and reading these posts. Like I said, Phin's been doing pretty well lately, other than giving us a few minor frights and his chart presenting some disappointments we've been trying to keep in perspective. I'll get into that below. He's one month into the new school year, and he likes his teacher and his classmates. He's still swimming a lot and practicing taekwondo every day (often by attacking me, Cato-from-Pink Panther-style, when I least expect it), and hanging out watching movies, riding bikes, and playing videogames with his sisters and friends.
He's really glad to still be home, and glad to still be alive.
Medical Updates
Phin's latest bloodwork found no evidence of disease, and all his counts (white blood cells, red blood cells, platelets) came back in the normal and expected ranges. The Graft vs. Host Disease (GVHD) is still a concern, but something appears to be working (either the medicine or Phin's martial arts stretching/activity) because he is regaining some of the flexibility and range of motion he lost in his elbows and wrists. His oncologist was excited by those results.
One bummer is that the scan of his lungs indicates he probably has very mild asthma. I just want to pause here and say, as a lifelong asthma sufferer who has carried an inhaler in my pocket every day since age six, that it's wild how little bothered I was by the news that Phin might also have asthma now, too. Asthma sucks. I wouldn't wish it on anybody. It's miserable, scary, and dangerous. If Phin had received that diagnosis without having spent half his life fighting leukemia, I probably would have been devastated. Keep in mind, however, all the forms that Neesha and I had to sign that acknowledged the risks required just for Phin to get the medicines to save him from cancer. They always read something like:
Do you understand that this treatment may cause heart failure? Check.
Liver failure? Check.
Kidney failure? Check.
Blindness? Check.
Paralysis? Check.
Nerve damage? Check.
That it might cause new cancers to form, including the very same cancer that it's being administered to treat? Check.
On and on.
All these risks and compromises we agreed to. The possibility of death versus the absolute certainty of death.
Easy choices, when you think about it.
Not really, though.
Neesha texted from the clinic appointment: "The doctor says Phin looks great but maybe has asthma now."
I took a hit off my puffer and thought, Could be worse.
Phin On the Daily
Yesterday, as Phin and I were returning home after his taekwondo class, I mentioned the recent string of fox sightings our neighbors have been reporting. That's all it took to launch us on a fox safari. As we crept down cul de sacs with our windows open in the spitting rain of that early autumn afternoon, I thought of how we used to trek around our subdivision looking for different kinds of mushrooms, or for bats, or birds, or deer, or alligators, or armadillos, or insects. I remembered how we spent mornings during the pandemic looking for animal scat or footprints in the dirt that had been cleared by builders as they prepared to make our community's newest homes. I remember learning all kinds of animal facts with him. So much has happened since then. A lot of things are different now. He's different. I am, too.
But I guess in some ways, not really.
It's no coincidence that I'm bringing up Cure Childhood Cancer and their fundraiser yard flags now, since September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. As you may have guessed, I'm a proponent of childhood cancer awareness.
And action!
Sometimes when somebody's shaking you down to donate to a cause, it helps to have a specific person in mind and to know how that person got helped by the money people donated. So, this September, if any of the following organizations hit you up, here's what they did for Phin and us.
Thanks, Phin phans.
