Jonathan Pitre was back in the operating room, less than a week after his most recent stem cell transplant.
Grow White Blood Cells Grow! pic.twitter.com/CTBQFOs9g7
— Tina Boileau (@BoileauTina) April 18, 2017
The 16-year-old from Russell, known as the "Butterfly Boy," is in Minnesota to seek treatment for his blistering skin disease known as epidermolysis bullosa (EB). He underwent the second such treatment last Thursday after the first, in September, didn't produce new white blood cells.
On Monday, his mother Tina Boileau shared a Facebook post saying Pitre was in an operating room to have new peripherally installed central catheters, or PICC lines, inserted. She says the lines that were previously in his body were no longer in the proper place, and were contributing to a blood infection.
The operation forced a chemotherapy treatment to be delayed, but Boileau says it is now complete.
Boileau says the hope is that new white blood cells will begin to appear in Pitre's bloodstream within two to three weeks.