6/05/2007

Scans, infection, school

Aside from these being the last two weeks of school this year and our attempts to get Max there as much as possible, he's got some important scans at the hospital coming up. Wednesday he'll have his MIBG and next Monday an MRI and bone marrow aspiration.

Andy & I are very interested to see the results. Last months scans showed stability but no visible improvement from the previous scans. His urine markers (VMA and HVA) have had an ever so slight increase since March which is not good - but also not an accurate way (alone) to judge what's going on with his cancer. (added by Andy 6/7 - Max's LDH on 5/29 was 655, normal is 500-900, and trending upward; VMA was 12.2 up from 10.8 and also trending upward)

Our concern is such that we are meeting with Max's oncologist this Friday to discuss treatment options should the scans show cancer progression or simply stability again. How can we kick this thing down?

Going back to the other area of concern this past week (his stomach problems) we've started giving him g-tube feeds as of last night. He's responding well and we'll have him back up to 4-5 cans per day before the end of the week. His antibiotic for the C-Diff infection is a pain in the butt: 4 times per day for 14 days! And it tastes awful... yeah, I tried it. It's so bad that I'm training the nurse at his school how to give it to him through his g-tube because he has to take it during the lunch hour.

His counts were getting low today at his clinic check-up. The nurse he saw thought he'd need a transfusion before the end of the week - he'll be back in Thursday to check. His ANC is only 370 so he'll be back to wearing a mask at school and hopefully not pick anything up that would cause him to miss the last week of school and the Big Kindergarten Carnival which is the funnest thing ever! As always, we will work our hardest to see that he makes it!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Okay just have to tell you guys that when lifes LITTLE things bring me down I am quick to remember how you handle what I will say has to lifes BIGGEST chalenge with such STRENGTH, DETERMINATION AND GRACE!

Love and prayers always,
Bree

Melis said...

In response to Bree... everyone has their bad days and believe it or not I sometimes think of the people who's problems are seemingly bigger than mine and it puts my day into perspective, too. No matter how hard things seem, there is always happiness to be found. Melis

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