Last time we caught up with Yosef and his family, we shared that Nava is cancer-free! We also acknowledged how her fight wasn’t quite over. She was about to face another major battle: a bone marrow transplant, for which her brother, Koby, had stepped up to be the donor.
We recently called Yosef to check-in with the Seewalds and get an update on where they’re at in this ongoing journey.
One Transplant, Two Recoveries
It’s been a tale of two recoveries since the transplant. Yosef explains that Koby bounced back in just a few days, while Nava’s had a rockier road.
“For her, the bone marrow transplant process was rough and unenjoyable for about a month and a half,” Yosef says. “At which point she entered severe isolation protocol. She wasn’t allowed to be near most people.”
While anything but fun, this reverse isolation was for Nava’s benefit. As explained in the Journal of Microbial Pathogenesis, this type of isolation is a must for patients with compromised immune systems. It helps prevent infections—which are especially dangerous for patients in this state—by creating a protective barrier around them, ultimately improving patient outcomes and enhancing their quality of life in the long run.
During this time, the Seewalds did everything in their power to keep Nava uplifted. “If she could have one visitor, she had one visitor. If she wanted some specific food or drink, then we got it for her,” Yosef says. “Whatever we could do, we did.”
Eventually, Nava was allowed to leave the hospital and return home—with lots of medicine and a revamped isolation protocol. She still goes in for two to three clinic visits a week, where her medical team runs all sorts of tests to make sure she keeps recovering well. But as Yosef says with a cheery relief, “it’s just getting better and better every day.”
In fact, Nava’s gotten so much better that she’s frequently leaving the house.
Going Out and About—All the Time
“Every second of every day, she wants to get out,” Yosef says of his daughter. Nava’s been able to have friends come over since being home. But it’s leaving the house—though not to very crowded places—that most excites her. “She wants to go for frozen yogurt, she wants to go for ice cream, she wants to go for Slurpees. She goes to the library. She goes to the park. She just wants to get out.”
Getting to go out with her friends is even better. When we talked with Yosef, Nava was just about to have her first sleepover since the start of this health journey, and she couldn’t have been more excited about it.
With her strength surging and her hair regrowing, Nava and her new crew cut also joined Yosef at a nursing home recently. They went right after one of her clinic visits, and the girl who still dreams of becoming a NICU nurse dressed the part by wearing a MedElite jacket.
“She was loving it,” Yosef recounts. “She was like, ‘I’m so cool.’ And you know what? She was.”
A Travel Ban, Hawaii, and the Battle Royale Between Them
Nava is enjoying many of the things she wasn’t able to when she had acute myeloid leukemia. Yet there’s still a lot she’s looking forward to experiencing as her recovery progresses—starting with her wish.
“Right now Nava has a travel ban where she’s not allowed to get on a plane or be that far from the hospital,” Yosef explains. But “as soon as she gets her travel ban lifted, she has a hot date with Make-A-Wish. They’re paying for seven days in Hawaii, for her and the rest of our family.”
It’s a well-deserved getaway they’ll be able to enjoy soon after Nava passes a test that Yosef describes as “immune system battle royale.”
Presently, Nava is on immunosuppressants to stop Koby’s immune system from attacking her. Her medical team slowly reduces this medication and monitors the reaction, administering other medicine like steroids if there’s an adverse reaction such as a rash—which has happened. Once she’s off the immunosuppressants and her immune system proves to be functioning well, they’ll feel more comfortable letting her go. Pending one final test.
“It’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard of,” Yosef says enthusiastically, his medical brain clearly stimulated. “They essentially take a blood test, and they take her immune system. And they put it in a test tube or something and they attack it with viruses, bacteria, and fungus, and they do like an all-out battle royale and see if her immune system can fight all this stuff off.”
It’s a battle the Seewalds know Nava can win. It’s a battle they’re helping her win—just as others have been helping the entire family during this ongoing fight.
Learning to Rely on Community
“I’ve learned how much you can rely on friends and family, and how important they are,” Yosef says. “Just to have a community and friends and people who are more than willing to help and support you if you accept it.”
Accepting the help was something the Seewalds had to get accustomed to. Yosef admits to having to work hard to think of ways others could assist the family when they asked how they could help. But once he detailed their needs, their community stepped up to meet them, making everything easier for the family.
Engaging with their community also brought perspective the Seewalds didn’t anticipate. Yosef explains how quickly it became clear that other families had undergone similar ordeals, as many people they knew reached out and shared insights from when they or a sibling had childhood cancer. Including one of Nava’s teachers, who also had leukemia as a kid.
“I feel like people, when they’re put in a situation that they need the help, need to put in the effort to allow people to help them,” Yosef says, thinking of how he’d advise others based on this experience. “There’s nothing that we have to deal with that people haven’t already dealt with. Have faith that it’s going to work out.”
The Journey Continues
Nava is on track to keep hitting key milestones in her recovery. Not only to get to Hawaii, but to get back on the ice so she can continue pursuing her Olympic figure skating dreams. And the Seewalds are spurring her on, just as they’re spurred on by friends, family and the MedElite community.
“MedElite’s already been awesome,” Yosef answers when asked how the organization can best support his family. “Already, between the reaching out, the support, the love, and the job security. It’s just been amazing. And it’s going to be great—everything that happens is going to be great.”
This last part is said with an eye towards Nava’s future. Yosef thoughtfully reveals that this journey has made his daughter an entirely different person. He doesn’t even recognize pictures of her from before. To him, the person in these old photos no longer looks like his daughter—more because of inner changes than outer ones.
“I have no idea how she’s going to turn out now as a person because of what happened,” Yosef says. “But I’m excited to see how this difficult time turns out to work for the better. The fulfillment of whatever faith I have now that this is going to work out, I can’t wait to see that come true.”
