Well - it's been a year. Damn. That was quick and long.

Update - he landed in DC. Spent about a month at Walter Reed. They then "transferred" him to Froedert hospital in Milwaukee WI for his bone marrow transplant. No family were matches but they found a willing donor in Europe and they did the surgery in Milwaukee. That happened and he spent about a month there. Since then he's been living at home with his mother, recuperating.

Kid's been amazing, never complained once. Hair's back, weight is back. He's still on a pile of pills but there's no sign of cancer in his system. Currently processing out of the Air Force as a Medical Retire. Everything in Italy's packed up and heading back as ETS/PCS basically.

He'll have a lot of follow ups - make sure it doesn't come back and they'll revisit his disability rating in 3 years but I'd say within a month, he's no longer active duty and his care is via VA instead of Tricare.

Wounded Warrior Project has been and continues to be an AMAZING resource and advocate for us. Not only fighting the VA, Tricare but also the Air Force for him on issues and needs (they tried sending him a bill for the transplant). I can not thank them enough and 100% of my veteran charitable giving outside of the American Legion dues goes to them. From paying to get the GF to Italy, for her stay there, per diem for food, ride back home etc to just helping us understand process - they've 10000% been there for us, all hours of the day. Really can not say enough good things about them. The level of emotional and financial support was off the charts. We actually gave back about 6k worth of help as it just wasn't needed (per diem - gotta eat anyway, wasn't fair to take that money)


Last weekend - the kid got invited to an Elephant Walk with some reservists down in Milwaukee. Borrowed a uniform (he has nothing CONUS) and got a hair cut. Got to ride a KC130 refueler for some training and come back - took some good pics -

[Linked Image from i.postimg.cc]


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Me