10/27/2006

3-Month Check-up

Since this blog is a little bit of a diary for us to look back on, I wanted to expand on Andy's latest post and review what has happened since July 2006.

Max went in for his regular three month check-up the week of July 17 (MRI & bonescan). Both scans showed that a spot had appeared on his spine somewhere around T11 (if you know what that is). His oncologist ordered a biopsy on the site. Max underwent a CTscan guided needle biopsy of the site, however, pathology came back negative for cancer. In this case, negative means inconclusive, because if it's not cancer then what is it that's showing up on the scans?

The best course of action for now was to schedule Max for an MRI every month to watch the spot and see if it goes away (hooray), or grows (bad). Max had an MRI in August and September and the spot didn't grow, but it also didn't go away. His next 3-month check-up was October. At this point, the oncologist said that if the spot is still on his spine we will need to schedule an open biopsy of the site to get a better tissue sample. This was going to be very invasive, as the spot is between two vertebrae.

So, Max went in for his three month check up on October 20. The original spot was still on his spine, unchanged. And now we have a new spot on a rib. Great. We're now waiting for a CTscan to be taken for Max's surgeon to get a better look at the rib so she can do the biopsy. We should be going in for all of this Halloween week.

As you can imagine Andy & I are pretty stressed out, but doing our best to keep it normal around the house for the kids. Max is feeling well, going to school, and having fun in general. Next week Max's class is going on their very first school bus field trip to an animal center and he's going to be Superman for Halloween!

Thank you for your prayers and thoughts.

10/24/2006

Two years on Thursday 10/26... and some bad news.




















It was two years ago this Thursday, October 26 that Max was checked into Children's hospital and subsequently diagnosed with neuroblastoma. Unfortunately, today Max had a bone scan and we learned that he has a second "spot" on one of his ribs, which warrants a surgical biopsy be done immediately. He is likely to have the surgey early next week, Halloween day or the next most likely. We'll post an update as soon as we know something, good or bad. In the meantime, here's a picture of Max in kindergarden at "daddy day" earlier this month.