Tonight, I received yet another donation from a generous Bruin to Dribble For The Cure, bringing the total raised in my son Tyler's honor to over $3000!   Your generosity has been overwhelming.  The event is this Sunday, and I hope that I will be able to thank some of you in person- but as I realize that many of you are not able to attend the festivities, allow me to do so in this space:  Thank you all so much for your very heart warming and supportive gestures.  You make me even prouder to be a Bruin.

As for Tyler's condition, he just can't seem to get over the hump.  The good news is that the donor stem cells have successfully engrafted in his bone marrow and are producing new white blood cells.  The bad news is that because of the immunosuppressive therapy that is part of the transplant regimen, he keeps getting secondary infections which require him to stay in the hospital.  Three weeks ago, on the eve of his scheduled discharge actually, he found himself with a 104 degree fever as a result of an opportunistic infection of the BK virus.  He had just started to shake the virus this last weekend and was scheduled to be discharged this Wednesday.  Unfortunately, today he tested positive for C. difficile, a bacterium found in everyone's gut that is usually held in check in otherwise healthy individuals.  I won't go into the details of the symptoms and possible complications, but I'm sure you all can imagine what happens when an intestinal bacteria runs rampant.  It's not pleasant.  Fortunately, the hospital lab was at least able to isolate the cause of his symptoms so that he was able to begin treatment today.

Today is the 62nd consecutive day that Tyler has been in the hospital, and it's indefinite how many more there will be before he can get out of here.  It has certainly been a day when we could have used some good news, and getting an email that Tyler's page had surpassed the $3k mark was one of the few times that I smiled today. 

Thank you, once again.

-Derek (Tyler's dad)

UCLA, Class of '95