It’s been a long time since I updated. In this case, the old cliche has been true: no news indeed has meant good news. Brad has been recovering, slowly in some arenas and more quickly in others. The home rehab company that provided him with intensive physical and occupational therapy pronounced him a star patient, and their services have ended, which means things are much quieter around our house, with far fewer appointments taking place in our living room. Thanks to them and to his own perseverance and hard work, his strength has increased greatly and he’s able to walk much farther, albeit slowly. This morning he walked the girls to their summer day camp. His vision has also, after a long plateau, suddenly seen a rapid improvement, allowing him to walk more independently. (He’s also learned to use a white cane.) Recently he realized he can see just well enough to read extra-large text on the iPad and also to play chess against it. He has to hold the device close to his face and squint a bit, but that’s is a huge advance.

In other news, Brad was recently back in the hospital with a minor infection that proved to have originated in one of his central lines (the chest catheters used for IV nutrition and for the photopheresis—a blood treatment that combats his graft vs. host disease). In the end, his physicians decided to end his IV nutrition (which has made caregiving at home vastly easier) and remove both chest catheters. So, for a few brief days, Brad was completely free of any IV lines for the first time since May 2015. That didn’t last long, however, as he has now had a port (an under-the-skin line) put in to use for photopheresis, which his doctors expect him to continue getting indefinitely. The advantage of the port will be that it is much less susceptible to infection and requires less specialized line care.

There’s not much else to report, medically speaking, but on a personal note Brad is now well able to have visitors at home and has really been enjoying time with friends. If you’re local and would like to come by, please, give him a ring or shoot him a text (he’s now adept with using his phone despite his low vision), or contact me. Recently, his dad Joe was here for a couple of weeks, staying with Brad while the girls and I visited Canada and their grandmother, uncle, aunt, and cousins. We swam and kayaked, played with cousins, and had a great time. I was able to sneak away for a short trip to New York with friends (thanks to the kindness of Brad’s mother Susan, who looked after the girls), where I got the chance to see a couple of Broadway shows, including Hamilton. So, while things are not quite back to normal, and won’t be for a long time, they have certainly been looking up—and all that occurs to me in conclusion is a favorite quote from Hamilton, the musical: How lucky we are to be alive right now.