Results

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers.  Keep them coming...because they're working!  Nate's procedure went well.  It took a long time, but my mom and I managed to pass the time reading magazines and chatting.  They called us back to recovery and he woke up slowly but was soon his full-on goofy self.  The nurse asked if he always acted this way after anesthesia.  I said, "No...he just ALWAYS acts this way".

The Dr. called me with most of the results a few hours later.  You may remember that Nate had two areas left behind after tumor removal. One along the edge of his liver, and one down between his kidneys that I guess was along his aorta.  The spot along his aorta is GONE!!!  That's right, GONE!  The Dr. says he can see scar tissue where it used to be, but it is not lighting up on the MIBG scan (the scan specific for neuroblastoma).  The area on his liver is a little more complicated.  I guess after he had his initial surgery to remove the tumor, his liver was full of fluid, which is normal after major abdominal surgery.  On his last scan, the area on the liver looked like it was wrapped around the fluid filled area of the liver.  The fluid is now gone from his liver which is good...and expected...but the shape of the tumor has completely changed in to a ball.  The shape has changed so dramatically that it is impossible to know if the area has shrunk and is responding to the chemo.  The Dr. will be sending the scans off to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York to get their opinion, but he is pretty sure it will just be an opinion...not fact.  If he had to venture a guess he would say that it had indeed shrunk...but it's just a guess.  The good news is that the area is operable...he thinks it will indeed have to be removed with surgery.  The surgery won't happen until after round 5 of chemo, maybe some time in November.  Chris and I had already decided that we want to take Nate to New York if he needs any more surgery.  We are forever grateful to the surgeons who removed most of Nate's tumor in July, but there is one Dr. in this country (maybe the world), who is the absolute best Neuroblastoma surgeon...and he's in New York.  We want our baby boy operated on by the absolute best.  We want this spot gone...100%.  We have not received his bone marrow biopsy results and don't expect to until early next week, but we expect nothing but clear bone marrow.  It was clear before, there is no reason why it wouldn't still be clear, so we are really not worried.  The final test result we got back was the ECHO (measure of how healthy his heart is).  They check this because chemo can damage the heart and he must have a strong heart to continue treatment.  The Dr. said they give it a score based on a number of different factors and the top score is 70.  Nate had a 64 prior to chemo treatment...and had a 65 today.  Leave it to Super Nate to use the poison to make him stronger.

He is having a sleepover at the hospital with Daddy tonight, waiting to start chemo.  They found some blood in his urine and have to determine where it is coming from, especially if it is an infection, before they can start the chemo. Hopefully, he can start tomorrow.  It's a little frustrating because we don't want to delay treatment any further, but we also want to make sure that Nate is safe.  Please pray that they will be able to figure out where the blood is coming from and resolve it easily, so he can start chemo tomorrow, and that this round goes smoothly.

Thank you so much to everyone who thought about Nate today, to those who prayed for him, to those who called, sent a text, wrote and email or wrote a note on Facebook or this blog.  Whether I know you personally or not, it means so much to us and to Nate, we all feel the love and support and could not do this alone.  There are twists and turns along the way, good days and bad.  I'm marking today in the "good day" column.  We'll take as many as we can get.